Architectural photography can shape how we view our surroundings. Famous buildings are cast in new light, shadows turn a stairwell into an enigmatic underworld, or colourful walls become abstract artworks. Today, we spotlight five lens-based practitioners, all featured in Aesthetica, each redefining how we engage with the built environment. Their approaches diverge – some lean into abstraction, other embrace human presence, or blend documentary clarity with poetic Vision. Each one shares a common drive: to reveal the unseen rhythms of architecture and the emotional undercurrents embedded in everyday spaces. They invite viewers to consider what it means to truly look at the world around us.
Marco Wilm | Blue tones, dark shadows and built structures are hallmarks of Marco Wilm’s visual style. The Berlin-based image-maker captures “the quiet tension between people and architecture,” drawing on elements of street photography, fine art and minimalism. For Wilm, buildings are more than a backdrop. They are central protagonists, lending clean lines, curves, reflections and scale to compositions.
Michel Lamoller | In Michel Lamoller’s photographs, various prints are layered on top of one another in ways that mimic our increasingly stacked and urbanised behaviour. Through the acts of cutting and pasting – and further exaggerating the labyrinthine qualities of megacities – he explores what it means to exist in radically mechanised landscapes, whilst questioning the ultimate reality presented by images today.
Natalie Christensen | Almost 10 years ago, photographer Natalie Christensen left her career as a psychotherapist, exchanging a professional identity for architectural landscapes. Empty parking lots, forgotten swimming pools and open doors attract viewers to the scene, asking them to reassess everyday settings with a renewed vision, detecting forms, colours and shapes that seem to hide in plain sight.
Iwan Baan | Under Iwan Baan’s lens, structures shine architecturally, but are also presented as human habitats with people sitting, standing and moving. “I quickly have a sense of how I want to portray space. It is always a challenge and that is where the excitement comes from.” Instead of imposing a preconcieved idea, he waits. “It is a very intuitive way of working, lingering around and seeing the rhythm of the day.”
Satijn Panyigay | Architecture is Satijn Panyigay’s (b. 1988) subject of choice. The Dutch-Hungarian photographer creates brooding images of empty museums, homes under construction, buildings during renovation and out-of-hours offices. These shadowy, analogue scenes, devoid of people and temporarily detached from their function, often resemble paintings, inviting viewers into an enigmatic world.
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Image Credits:
1. Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre Baku, Azerbaijan, Zaha Hadid. Image courtesy Iwan Baan.
2. Marco Wilm, Shapes and Lines 1, Berlin, February 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.
3. Marco Wilm, Blue Stairs, Copenhagen, October 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.
4. Michel Lamoller, Anthropogenic Mass 3/ Acity 6 (2021). 9 layers of Archival Pigment Prints: 40cm x 60cm x 15cm. Courtesy of the artist.
5. Image courtesy of Natalie Christensen.
6. Image courtesy of Natalie Christensen.
7. Soho Wangjing, Beijing, China, Zaha Hadid. Image courtesy Iwan Baan.
8. Satijn Panyigay, Nightcall II-07, (2024). Image courtesy of the artist.
9. Satijn Panyigay, Nightcall II-05, (2024). Image courtesy of the artist.
