«Epifania dell’immagine». L’architetto-fotografo tra rappresentazione, interpretazione e conservazione

The spread of photography as a tool that captures instantaneous images of the world has radically changed the approach to knowledge and representation of reality. Among the many contexts to which this assumption can be referred, architects’ photographic archives represent an invaluable reservoir of documentation of the city and its architecture. At the same time, these images constitute an instrument of interpretation and expression: the authorial vision of a ’designing thought’. With what gaze does the architect observe the places he is about to modify through design? How does he choose to represent his architecture once the intervention has been realised? When ’matter’ represents the field of restoration, Cesare Brandi defines it as «something that the epiphany of the image needs», i.e. its manifestation. Matter and image thus appear inseparable. At the same time, it is the images that, in numerous cases, contribute – or have contributed – to the definition of the object. There are many different aspects that contribute to creating the consolidated image of buildings and their urban context, in some cases making them ’icons’: the location, the observation point, the light, the atmosphere, the gaze. What has been briefly outlined allows us to establish an indissoluble link between the work (on an architectural or urban scale) and its photographic representation as expressed by the author. Starting from these premises, the session welcomes proposals capable of fuelling an interdisciplinary and as broad as possible debate on this theme.