Ace photographer and observer of human interaction with architecture, Iwan Baan captures the present-day frames of two intended utopias – Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh and Oscar Niemeyer’s Brasilia.
Iwan Baan attempts to capture the realities of living in a modernist vision. Through a series of images that compose the human scale, activity and occupation of spaces, the book is a walk through the two cities: their streets, squares, plazas, sculptural forms, concrete and their paradoxes. Printed on matt pages, these images present a wonderful dichotomy of monumental structures in the background against life that takes the foreground.
Published by Lars Muller Publishers, the celebrated architecture of the two cities is presented in the book as a set that stages the theatre of life. The writings by Cees Nooteboom and an illustrated epilogue by architectural critic Martino Stierli discuss the historical and polemic position of the two cities. The book is a wonderful record of the failures and triumphs of utopian blueprints.
Title: Living with Modernity: Brasilia-Chandigarh
Author: Iwan Baan with Cees Nooteboom and Martino Stierli
Publisher: Lars Müller
Language: English
ISBN: 978-3-03778-288-6
