sey059

My daughter is an expert at photobombing. Photo ©Darren Bradley When the Austrian-born architect Harry Seidler arrived in Australia after World War II (via North America - that's a long story), he didn't make many friends in the local architecture community. He called the local architecture  "sad brick shacks"  and poor copies of outdated European architecture. Town councils and distinguished local architects returned the favor, decrying his modernist designs as flimsy and "un-Australian".  Shades of the Villa Savoye here. Photo ©Darren Bradley For an architect trained by disciples of the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier, it simply wouldn't do to set up residence in a Georgian or Victorian terrace house or a clapboard cottage (the predominant styles there at the time). So when it came time to build a house for his parents, he decided to design and build it himself.  Photo ©Darren Bradley Now in 1948, there really was no such thing as modern architecture in Austr...

Trying to make the best of a cloudy afternoon. Photo ©Darren Bradley The Sydney Opera House is one of the most well known, magnificent structures in the world. It's up there with other man-made structures like the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal as a singular achievement for civilization. And like most other great achievements, it was almost never built. In fact, it was quite a soap opera... As seen from the ferry, coming into Circular Quay from Manly. Photo ©Darren Bradley I may be heading back to Australia in a week or two, so I thought I'd do a few posts to show some photos from my last time down there, last year. Probably too much to talk about so I'll do it in parts. Let's start with the Sydney Opera House...  The three shells are visible here. The smallest one on the left is supposed to be a very nice restaurant. But I've never eaten there because the prices are insane - even with my expense account. Photo ©Darren Bradley Of course, everyone knows about the Ope...

Yes, even me... Photo ©Darren Bradley OK, that title is meant as a bit of a joke (photographer humor?), because there's probably no such thing as an original photo of this building - and certainly not the one above. In fact, it's the most obvious shot and the one everyone takes. C'mon... if you've been there, you've taken this shot, too. You can't help yourself. And since no series on the Salk Institute is complete without this shot, I thought I'd get it out of the way first thing. Deliberately NOT standing on the center line of the courtyard. Photo ©Darren Bradley Having the good fortune to live just a few miles away from one of the greatest icons of modern architecture in the world is a lucky break. It gives me a ready-made place to practice my photography whenever I like, and I never get tired of watching how the light plays off the various textures and creates shadows from the different angles.  Photo ©Darren Bradley But it's also a challenging plac...

Photo ©Darren Bradley Last summer, I took the family back to New York City for a quick trip (just a few days) to attend a family wedding. We didn't have much time to sightsee (or do much photography), but I did bring my camera, of course, and take some shots while running around town. There are many, many modernist landmarks to see and photograph in that fair city. This is only a random sampling of them.  The above building is one of my favorites. C oming out of the depression, banks were mistrusted and disliked. It was widely accepted at the time that banks should be built of stone, to resemble castles or greek temples, with thick masonry walls to convey a sense of permanence and stability. But they were dark and closed. What better way to instill trust and convey openness than to build a bank out of glass? Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill created this masterpiece in 1953. The design was a huge success and was then widely copied throughout the rest of the country ...