Iwan Baan

Iwan Baan (b. 1975) is one of today’s leading photographers of architecture and the built environment. His images document the growth of global megacities, explore traditional and informal housing structures, and portray buildings by prominent contemporary architects including Herzog & de Meuron, Rem Koolhaas, and Zaha Hadid. In autumn 2023 the Vitra Design Museum opened the first major retrospective of his work, presenting a vast selection of highlights from the Dutch photographer’s oeuvre.

Ever since its inception, and even more so since the rise of mass media, photography has fundamentally informed the way we perceive architecture and the built environment. In the unprecedented flood of ubiquitous architectural images of the last 20 years, there may be no other photographer that has had a similarly profound influence on how we see and experience buildings through the lens of a camera. Baan’s vibrant realism focuses on people and their relationships with the built environment. His observant eye presents architecture not as an abstract ideal, but as the setting of everyday life and an organic part of the urban fabric –be it suburban sprawl or the booming metropoles of Africa, America and Asia. The exhibition includes a variety of Baan’s iconic works, many of which are familiar from magazines and books, as well as photographs of traditional and informal architecture from all around the world, from the round Tulou of southern China to the rock -hewn churches of Ethiopia. Thanks to the great scope of his vision, Baan’s works offer a broad panorama of human construction and ways of living that impressively demonstrates the existential importance of architecture and urban design.

In its multimedia presentation, including print and digital formats, the exhibition invites visitors on a journey through Baan’s rich scope of work from the last two decades, depicting his observations of the manifold manifestations of human habitats around the globe.

Space
600 – 1,000 m² / 6,000 – 10,000 sq ft

Concept
Mea Hoffmann, Iwan Baan

Curator
Mea Hoffmann

Exhibition and Graphic Design
René Herzogenrath
Judith Brugger
Stefani Fricker
Erika Müller

Detailed information
Illustrated Concept
Exhibition Film
Exhibition Talk with Iwan Baan
Iwan Baan - Reflecting on Architecture

Exhibition Tour
21.10.2023 – 03.03.2024, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
07.06.2024 – 08.09.2024, Museo ICO, Madrid, Spain
   
For further information please contact Cora.Harris@design-museum.de.

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