How photographer Iwan Baan gives life to architecture

The work of Iwan Baan, who is renowned for his collaborations with the most important architects of our time, is showcased at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, in the first major retrospective dedicated to the Dutch photographer."Iwan Baan. Moments in Architecture" can be seen through March 3, 2024, after which the exhibition will travel to museums around the world.

A singular perspective

Francis Kere, Herzog & de Meuron, Jean Nouvel, Sou Fujimoto and Rem Kohlhaas are just a few of the architects who have worked with Iwan Baan to document their projects.

The Dutch photographer does not photograph the buildings in isolation, but rather highlights how they are connected with their surroundings and, above all, with the people who live or work there.

"You're present, you wait for the moment. But you also don't know exactly what to expect," says Baan, describing his approach to photography. "There is also like a sort of anticipation of what can happen. And you are there for the right moment and the right time. And things somehow always fall into place."

Iwan Baan doesn't only photograph new and contemporary designs. He is fascinated by unusual, traditional buildings — for example, the rock churches in Ethiopia or the Fujian tulou, traditional circular villages in China.

With his camera, he also documents the growth of booming megacities worldwide and the coexistence of people in makeshift living structures.

First highlights

Born in 1975 in the Netherlands, Baan studied photography, not architecture — which is perhaps what allowed him to have an unbiased view of buildings when he started out.

He began working for the Dutch architect Rem Kohlhaas and his architectural firm, OMA, in 2004. That led him to document construction of the impressive CCTV headquarters in Beijing, China, designed by OMA, as well as the Beijing Olympic Stadium by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.

In these first series, he sometimes focused on the workers involved in the construction projects. The unusual approach established his name in the world of architecture.

In 2012, Iwan Baan was awarded a Golden Lion for his exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale, where he showed a series of photos documenting the self-organized coexistence of people squatting in the ruins of the Torre David skyscraper in Caracas, Venezuela. The impressive study reflects the photographer's interest in the interaction between humans and architecture.

DW's 'Euromaxx' portrays Iwan Baan at work

One of the publications documenting Iwan Baan's work is titled "Momentum of Light," which the photographer published in 2021 in collaboration with Pritzker and Praemium Imperiale prize-winner Francis Kere.

This project is another example of how Baan explores the diversity of human living conditions, as the photo book focuses on the stark lighting in traditional buildings in Burkina Faso, Francis Kere's home country. 

Along with the exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum, Iwan Baan's work is portrayed by DW as part of its culture and lifestyle magazine, "Euromaxx." The documentary is a collaboration between DW and the Vitra Design Museum and is part of the exhibition.

This article was originally written in German.