Erieta Attali

Erieta Attali, photographer and university professor, has been exploring the relationship between architecture and landscape at the edges of the world for two decades. Her photographic work investigates how extreme conditions lead humanity to reorient itself and rediscover its center, through architectural responses. She taught architectural photography for 15 years at Columbia University’s architecture department in New York, and as Visiting Professor at the architecture departments of the Catholic University of Santiago in Chile, the Technion in Haifa, Israel, the University of Tokyo, and many others. Since January 2020 she has been Assistant Professor in the architecture department of Cooper Union in New York, and since January 2021 she has been Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore, while simultaneously photographing and publishing photography and architecture books with renowned publishers in Germany.

S.M.: You are among the few architectural photographers who work on large-scale constructions, bridges being a characteristic example. Where does this particular interest come from? As a woman photographer, have you faced difficulties due to the special demands of such photo shoots?

EA: I was born in Tel Aviv where I lived until I was four years old, before moving to Istanbul. Among the many advantages of living in such a place, I was able to witness up close the construction of the Bosporus Bridge, which was a very significant moment in the city’s history, as it united East and West. From a construction perspective, in such a dramatic landscape as the Bosporus, I was deeply impressed as a little girl. Among my fantasies of traveling and crossing the entire world was also the dream of filming the experience of a new landscape through the creation of a megastructure.

On July 14, 2016, I was fortunate to attend a conference at the V&A Museum in London, titled “Beyond the Bridge.”On the list of speakers, I saw the biography of Marc Mimram. I didn’t know who he was, but I was curious to hear him talk about his work. I was astonished by his award-winning bridges in Morocco, China, and Kehl—just to name a few. I had just discovered someone whose mission was to connect geographies, the seas with the land. I saw curves sinking into the water, windows opening to the sky, reflecting, floating, and creating new crossroads. Looking at Mimram’s bridges was like immersing myself in Max Ernst’s painting Humboldt Current (1951–52). By that time, I had already photographed across the world and had just completed my PhD studies in Australia, with important photographic monographs ready for publication. I had also been a long-distance runner since I was very young. My first routes were through the lush Princes’ Islands. Running was a reflective experience, I felt attuned to the rhythm of the tree trunks.

When you run, you gain a physical experience of the landscape. You are neither a spectator nor a theoretical commentator. The process is not necessarily comfortable, but it offers a unique perspective, which I have carried into my profession and my research. The runner is exposed to nature, to vegetation, dust, and weather conditions. Choosing the right route takes on an existential dimension. The physical dimension of photography, which is often overlooked, is a very important element in my work. The constant attraction I feel for extremes is, above all, an existential condition related to the exploration of the physical and psychological limits of humanity. I express this by choosing inaccessible landscapes, with heavy loads of equipment, and through a general perspective shaped by the years I spent as a long-distance runner.

S.M.: What is it that makes architectural photography a distinct category, in your experience?

EA: Looking back at my student years as a photography student and later as an archaeological photographer—while landscape remained my main focus—I always aimed to identify structures and, through composition, integrate them into a new, composite landscape. I use the word “structures” in the broadest sense, since for many years these were either natural formations, such as stones or plants, or—especially at the beginning of my career—ancient ruins. The search for structures stemmed from the need to identify and investigate relationships among these solitary elements—almost imaginary characters—and the landscape. The intensity of the transition from one to the other provoked my curiosity, through their dialogue.

Through my experience as a photographer of archaeology, landscape, and—for the past twenty-five years—architecture, I worked to create a visual language where the separation between content (human-made structures) and environment (natural or urban) is dissolved and their relationship is inverted. Architecture is regarded as one of the elements of its environment. At the same time, the environment penetrates architecture and is filtered through it. This interpretation recalls the architect Bruno Taut, who considered architecture as an act of “designing relationships” rather than the organization of “forms within light” or the simple geometrization of architectural space.

Architectural photography (not necessarily “architectural photography” as a genre) can reveal and intensify the interaction between artifacts and their respective environments, transcending the utilitarian, documentary dimension of the medium, so that it functions as a tool of interpretation and understanding. Human-made structures are always situated within an environment: natural, urban, or even an abstract landscape that is constantly evolving. Awareness of this environment provides not only information and better understanding of the subject of photography, but also a glimpse into the natural forces that affect it and, perhaps, shaped its initial conception.

S.M.: Your photographic work is based on systematic research, seeking a unique narrative. How do you approach your subject each time? What do you prepare, and what do you leave “open”?

EA: I use narrative as a counter-mechanism to the use of images that function emblematically. Exploring ways to further develop the narrative character of architectural photography and aiming to move away from an iconic image, toward a cinematic expression, I discover and capture transitions: circadian, seasonal, climatic—as they appear in architectural materials, crystalline formations, and plants. While working, I realized the importance of wandering, both as an analytical tool for understanding space and as a narrative tool for communicating it.

Although there is an astonishing range of freely available photographs, through print and digital channels, monographs and special editions focusing on specific regions, styles, or materials, the majority are homogeneous in the way they visually communicate architecture. This common language stems both from how architectural photographers have learned to approach the built environment and from the demands of publishers, who dictate a particular method of documentation they want. Even in such a tiring professional environment dominated by sameness, there are still photographers who persist in devoting days to becoming familiar with their subject.

The photographic perspective I had developed coincided with the work of Kengo Kuma, without me having studied either his theoretical stance or his built works. His work happened to express what I was seeking through photography: being in absolute osmosis with the landscape, while in fact being within architecture. As a matter of principle, I never study architects’ texts.

I interpret their architecture myself through a subjective exploration, with the camera and in relation to the landscape. This approach is always enriched by close discussions, but it always begins on-site and through the lens.

Read the full interview in ek issue ek 260 | September 2021.