Machu Picchu, Peru

Anyone who’s traveled to popular touristic sites knows the feeling of being caught in the crossfire of countless camera lenses—the annoyed (and annoying) jockeying to capture the perfect shot … which in most cases looks exactly like everyone else’s. Striving to take that “perfect shot” reinforces the established, proper view of a monument, fully imprisoned in the image frame. When we stumbled across Richard Silver’s photographs of iconic monuments, we were shocked—caught in the same tourist hustle, Silver manages to give us a new perspective on famous landmarks we didn’t think possible.

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Photo: Derek Kettela for Elle France, 2010

This week’s edition of Guess the Buidling features model Erin Heatherton on a striking sculptural terrace. Golden sunlight  bounces off playful chimneys, creating a dynamic backdrop for this contemporary fashion shoot. Built by a modern master with a penchant for ornament and allegory, this project is a mainstay of academic and popular discussion. Have you seen the warm-toned masonry and arabesque motifs before? If you think you know the project, tell us in in the comments section below!

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Here at Architizer, we love spotlighting young talent. Up-and-coming designers bring fresh perspectives and apply new technology to their work, invigorating already innovative disciplines. Today we’re highlighting the work of photographer Daniella Zalcman, whose stunning New York + London series of superimposed photos takes Instagram images to a new level.

Navigating between travel and art photography, Zalcman documented her major transnational relocation to London from New York with this set of overlapping photographs of both cities. Her meticulous compositions produce synergy and dissonance in the same frame, heightening their visual contrast and strong atmospheric presence. Click through to see more!

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Barrow Cabins, a photo series by Seattle-based photographer Eirik Johnson, depicts homebuilt Alaskan hunting cabins during the seasonal extremes far above the Arctic Circle. Johnson got the idea for the series of diptychs while on assignment photographing a decommissioned US Navy base outside of Barrow, Alaska.

Hugging the US’s northernmost point, Barrow is so far north that the sun never fully sets during the summer—which gave Johnson ample sunlight in the evenings to explore the seasonal hunting camps on the outskirts of town. Built by the native Iñupiat people, the hunting cabins are vernacular shelters built of cast-off and found materials, used for only part of the year. While photographing the cabins, Johnson “felt the work was missing something” and decided to “return to the camp during the extreme counterpoint of the Arctic winter solstice, when the sun never completely rises and the sea ice has moved in to blanket the cabins.” The result: immaculate, paired images of vernacular structures amid the Arctic’s climactic extremes. Click through to see the photos!

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Photo: HOK Architects

Spring is in the air—from the magnolia trees bursting into bloom in Brooklyn to the daffodils carpeting the Upper West Side, the last traces of a protracted wet winter are quickly vanishing. The old proverb, April showers bring May flowers, is proving true once again! In the spirit of the times (and the logical corollary to our April post, Architecture in the Rain), we’ve compiled a group of buildings whose forms are indebted to flowers, literally. From geometric inspiration to cultural responsiveness, these projects strut their stuff (petals?) across the globe. Click through to see them all!

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For this week’s Guess the Building post, Architizer is headed to China! While we constantly find ourselves covering major projects by Western architects that have flocked to the Far East nation to build their own projects (Steven Holl, Coop Himmelb(l)au, PES-Architects to name a few), this set of fashion photos features the amazing work of a local! Think you’ve seen that gorgeous striated masonry before? Can you name the building? Tell us in the comments section below.

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At the epicenter of the world’s largest urban area, Tokyo is synonymous with density—an overflux of people, spaces, and ideas. Upending the general take of Tokyo as an urban over-stimulant, photographer Gabriel de la Chapelle has captured a novel, arresting view of the city as desolate landscape in his series, Tokyo End. His images are achingly captivating, showing empty stretches of urban infrastructure. Upon closer inspection, the empty “highways” are in fact canals with road striping superimposed. With not a soul in view, these impossibly beautiful images offer an intimate (if inaccessible) window onto the city. Click through to see them all.

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Attention, early modernist aficionados! In lieu of the pictures of the “Evil Villa Savoye“ we reported last month, today we bring you these lovely greeting cards inspired by Le Corbusier’s most famous buildings. Produced by London-based Stefi Orazi Studio, each pack of cards features minimalist illustrations of Le Corb’s canonical works. The roster includes (the real) Villa Savoye, Notre Dame du Haut (Ronchamp), Unité d’Habitation Marseille, Cité de Refuge, and Unité d’Habitation Berlin-Charlottenburg. Click through to see them all!

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We never thought anyone would top the soaring heights achieved and documented by the death-defying Russian teens, but these amazing aerial shots taken from kites are in serious contention! Shooting crazy images via kite-drone may be safer than “skywalking” without a harness, but it provides electrifying new perspectives on life on the ground.

Photographer Pierre Lesage captures his fantastic shots by suspending cameras from an enormous kite equipped with a remote shutter release (we assume the launching process is more graceful than the deadfall sprints back and fourth desperately hoping for the wind to pick up). In the Instagram age, where everyone is a photographer, Lesage’s amazing aerial images offer a unique and rarefied window onto the world. Scroll through the images after the jump!

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Ah fashion photography—in what other context would a bevy of glamourous women lounge nonchalantly on the ground in genuine Valentinos? Then again, those steps are *genuine* travertine, whose beautifully pocked surface catches shadows oh-so-well, camouflaging splotches of chewing gum and cigarette butts infinitely better than New York’s crusty cementitious sidewalks. So, where in the world is this fantastic urban stair? If you think you know this awesome project, sound off in the comments below!

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