Photographs by Hélène Binet
The Berlin theme at Arkitekturmuseet continues with this exhibition. Hélène Binet, one of the leading architectural photographers in the world, has been taken photos of buildings in Berlin in the 1980s, 1990s as well as in this millennium. This is the first time they are exhibited together.
In this unique exhibition the search for an attitude to holocaust and a lost identity during the last decades is reconstructed through five emblematic projects of architecture.
Victims by John Hejduk
In the book "Victims" (1986) the American architect John Hejduk presented 67 structures for Berlin. A place of stories, growth and addition in time and space. Some of the structures has been built.
Berlin Apeiron
Raoul Bunschoten examined how the division of Berlin influenced the city and its inhabitants in the project "Berlin Apeiron" (1988). The conditions of the project changed with the fall of the Berlin wall 1989.
Jewish Museum
Binet’s photographs of the Jewish Museum (1999) by Daniel Libeskind convey the strong feelings of sadness and emptiness that the building expresses.
Topography of Terror
Topography of Terror (2004) by Peter Zumthor should have been an International Exhibition and Documentation Centre at the place of the administrative centre of the National Socialist regime’s chief organs. But the political situation and the project changed, the building stopped and the bare walls of the exhibition centre stand like ruins in the photographs of Binet.
Holocaust Memorial
There is no goal, no ending, no way to work one self in or out in the Holocaust Memorial (2005) by Peter Eisenman. With the size of three football fields it has become a symbol of the terrible crime that was committed to the Jewish people during the Second World War. The photographs approach the monument by describing a distinguished phenomenon, small changes in light and shadow in repetitive obsession.
Hélène Binet
Hélène Binet has emerged as one of the leading architectural photographers in the world” says architect Daniel Libeskind and continues: ”Every time Hélène Binet takes a photograph, she exposes architecture’s achievements, strength, pathos and fragility”.
Hélène Binet was born in 1959 in Switzerland. After studying Photography at the Instituto Europeo di Design in Rome, where she grew up, she worked for two years as a photographer at the Grand Theatre de Geneve before turning to architectural photography.
She has been working amongst others with the contemporary architects Raoul Bunschoten, Caruso St.John, David Chipperfield, Tony Fretton, Zvi Hecker, John Hejduk, Coop Himmelblau, Sauerbruch and Hutton. She is best known for her work on Daniel Libeskind, Peter Zumthor and especially on Zaha Hadid. Apart from working for architects she has also produced her own work on the architecture of Alvar Aalto, Sigurd Lewerentz, Dimitris Pikionis, Dom. H. Van der Laan and Le Corbusier.
Recently her personal work focuses on landscape photography.
Hélène Binet’s work has been exhibited and published in books and magazines internationally.
She currently lives and works in London.