Architecture has always been a natural subject matter for photographers, but for most of the twentieth century the practice of architectural photography has been a professional endeavor—anonymous photographs taken for clients for specific, commercial reasons. This book concerns itself with another aspect of the phenomenon: the photography of architecture as an art practice. It considers the work of seven contemporary photographers who use buildings in their work in a new way. In these photographs, they respond to the work of prominent architects with their own singular interpretations. Here are Andreas Gursky's photos of the Stockhom Library by Gunnar Asplund, Thomas Ruff's photos of several works by Herzog & de Meuron, Hiroshi Sugimoto's photos of Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye, as well as works by Candida Hofer, Jeff Wall, Gunther Forg and Balthasar Burkhard. Architecture Without Shadow is a beautiful and valuable book on one of the prominent movements in contemporary photography.
