Marco Iuliano

Helene Binet - Architectural Photographers Marco Iuliano

Over a period of thirty years, Helene Binet has photographed both contemporary and historical architecture - this is the first retrospective monograph of her work. The book includes two extensive essays: In 'Becoming Binet', Marco Iuliano details Helene Binet's background, from her childhood in the Italian fishing village of Sperlonga and in Rome, through her early discovery of the work of architectural photographer Lucien Herve and other significant influences, to her first roles in fashion and stage photography, her early collaborations with Daniel Libeskind and John Hedjuk and her connections with the Architectural Association (AA) in London. At the AA, amongst many others, she met Zaha Hadid and Peter Zumthor, who became longstanding collaborators.

This essay discusses in detail Binet's approach to photography, her techniques and process and her archive. It also examines key themes running through her work and the more recent developments in her work, which explore abstraction through photography. In 'Positioning Binet', Martino Stierli situates Binet's work within the conceptual framework of architectural photography.

It asks whether architectural photograph is an inventory, an "index" of a building or spatial phenomenon; a translation of a building or space into the reality of the two-dimensional photographic image; or, rather and primarily, an image in its own right; an artifact that loosely relates to an object or phenomenon beyond itself? Within this context, Stierli argues that Binet's oeuvre seems to consistently oscillate between two obsessions: a desire to translate spatial phenomena into the two-dimensional space of the image on the one hand, and a quest to articulate, by means of the photographic image, the modulation of light on a surface. These essays are followed by a catalogue of Binet's work, which is framed within a series of her recurring themes.