Monochrome vision

Architectural Review, The, Feb, 2007 by Catherine Slessor

In the same way that Julius Shulman's crisp black and white photographs became the visual embodiment of Californian Modernism, so the images of Swiss photographer Helene Binet have also come to epitomise a specific nineties/noughties architectural zeitgeist. In an increasingly hectic and visually driven world, seduced by the quick fix of the flashy image, Binet's work is that rare thing--considered, methodical and thoughtful to the point of reticence. She works principally (and unfashionably) in black and white, usually edited down to remove the harsh contrasts characteristic of the monochromatic oeuvre. And though she has consorted photographically with many architects, from Tony Fretton to Daniel Libeskind, she has become most particularly associated with Peter Zumthor, a Swiss compadre, and Zaha Hadid. Strange bedfellows perhaps, yet Binet's intense, appraising gaze succeeds in calmly distilling the absolute essence of their architecture, like a latter-day Lucien Herve.

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For her current show at the Architectural Association, Hadid and Zumthor's buildings form a familiar core of work, amplified by images of Lewerentz, Le Corbusier, John Hejduk and a series of Swiss landscapes intended to quietly document the processes of geological and climate change. Yet somehow it lacks the impact of her contribution to last year's AA show on Hadid's Phaeno Science Centre, in which Binet's gigantic construction shots were inventively employed to convey a powerful sense of the muck and muscle involved in realising such radically ambitious architecture.

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Now, seen as artworks on their own and separated from the context of publication or a larger exhibition, this assemblage of unassuming images seems curiously adrift. AR readers may recall her ravishing monograph on Zumthor's Thermal Baths, in which the images formed part of a wider conversation, amplified and enriched by drawings and text; here, by contrast, the lone photograph of the Baths appeared lost and forlorn, a drifting art object. More successful, in experiential terms, was the room of Paysages en poesie, beautifully observed shots of the Swiss landscape--scree, melting snow, alpine pastures--where the prevailing sense of abstraction gripped and intrigued the viewer. And in some ways, this is the still thorny dilemma--is architectural photography 'art' in its own right, or simply a seductive means of presenting/defining/explaining architecture? Clearly Binet's work can be both, but seems richer and more resonant when employed to do a job, as opposed to elegantly navel gaze. But perhaps I've just worked on architectural magazines for too long.

Helene Binet: Site Works 1986-2007, The Architectural Association, 36 Bedford Square, London, until 8 February. www.aaschool.ac.uk/exhibitions