Architecture photographers' work is assumed as bearers of special information. Over the past 30 years, Hélène Binet has developed her work as a niche job, however she is not your average architectural photographer. Her work pay special attention to fascination for shadows and light and how they fall on materials such as stone or exposed concrete. Most of her color photographs have such a limited range of hues that they look almost monochrome.

At Royal Academy we will can see her shots show us an uncanny genius for finding in mute materials  its soul and desires, the people memory  into them.  The exhibition, 23-October-23 January, at the Royal Academy, explains her connection with the spirit of some one the world’s most beautiful buildings.
Her work in archtecture (during last years many times awarded, as the prize 2015 by Julius Shulman Institute Photography) started in the mid-1980s, in a casual meting with Bunschoten and Libeskind. She knowed the Libeskind  conceptual work with his students, as the installation "The House Without Walls", and Bunschoten was the link to know the American architect John Hejduk and his temporary proposal, "The Collapse of Time", near of the Architectural Association, in London’s Bedford Square. Both, were a fundamental inspiration her work. A first step followed by other works  closely with Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind and Peter Zumthor among others, who have turned to her to interpret their work, or reinterpreting the work of classics like Le Corbusier.

Hélène Binet explained part of these relationship: “It’s like being a musician in front a big audience. You can’t get it wrong. In that instant, you have to be the best of yourself, you bring your mind to a place, not to lose that unique moment.”

Hélène Binet has explained many times her commitment to working with analogue techniques, as opposed to digital, photography, of carrying around heavy equipment, loading it with expensive film, of putting her head under the dark cloth of a large-format camera, of composing the scene and at the end to develop and print the results in a dark room.

In this intimate exhibition of around 90 photographs, spanning projects from across Binet’s career, it foreground her ability to capture the essential elements of architecture. A number of the works are handprinted in black and white at her North London studio, using an analogue camera and film. Binet’s powerful, thought-provoking images reveal the light, space and form that unites architecture, be it 1970s brutalism or an 18th-century City church.

A key highlight is a section focused primarily on Binet’s work with Zaha Hadid, with whom she built a close professional relationship and captured almost all of the late architect’s projects. Other buildings featured include the Thermal Baths at Vals by Peter Zumthor, Le Corbusier’s La Tourette monastery in France and the Jantar Mantar Observatory in India. Binet’s enquiring, contemplative approach to photography extends into her recent work, which includes a set of Five Churches in Cologne by Gottfried Böhm, or commissioned to celebrate the Jørn Utzon’s centenary, and his iconic Can Lis house, no alwys well know, in Mallorca island, Spain.

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Royal Academy. Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BD, UK.
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23 October 2021 — 23 January 2022.
Tues–Sun: 10am–6pm.
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Hélène Binet was born in 1959 in Sorengo and is of both Swiss and French background. She studied photography at the Instituto Europeo di Design in Rome, where she grew up, and soon developed an interest in architetural photography.

Over a period of twenty-five years Hélène Binet has photographed both contemporary and historical architecture. Her list of clients include architects Raoul Bunschoten, Caruso St John, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Studio Mumbai, Peter Zumthor and many others. While following the work of contemporary architects – often from construction through completion – Hélène Binet has also photographed the works of past architects as Alvar Aalto, Geoffrey Bawa, Le Corbusier, Sverre Fehn, John Hejduk, Sigurd Lewerentz, Andrea Palladio, Dimitris Pikionis and Nicholas Hawksmoor. More recently, Hélène Binet has started to direct her attention to landscape photography, wherein she transposes key concerns of her architectural photography. Hélène Binet’s work has been published in a wide range of books, and is shown in both national and international exhibitions. Hélène Binet is an advocate of analogue photography and therefore she exclusively works with film.

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Published on: October 20, 2021
Cite: "Rediscoving the power and presence of architecture through Hélène Binet’s photographic lens" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/rediscoving-power-and-presence-architecture-through-helene-binets-photographic-lens> ISSN 1139-6415
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