Spectacular City
Photographing the Future

Design: Mevis & Van Deursen, Illustrated (colour and b/w), Hardcover, 192 pages, Size: 24,5 X 31 cm
English edition, ISBN 90-5662-518-7 / 978-90-5662-518-4, € 47.50 OUT OF PRINT

In association with the Netherlands Architecture Institute

Exhibition in the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam, from 23 September 2006 to 7 January 2007.

Spectacular City presents the work of about 30 leading artists, Dutch and international, who have chosen the urban landscape as their sphere of activity, such as Olivo Barbieri, Oliver Boberg, Balthasar Burkhard, Vincenzo Castella, Edgar Cleijne, Stéphane Couturier, Thomas Demand, Andreas Gefeller, Geert Goiris, Andreas Gursky, Naoya Hatakeyama, Todd Hido, Dan Holdsworth, Francesco Jodice, Aglaia Konrad, Luisa Lambri, Ine Lamers, Sze Tsung Leong, Armin Linke, Taiji Matsue, Karin Apollonia Müller, Bas Princen, Thomas Ruff, Frank van der Salm, Heidi Specker, Jules Spinatsch, Thomas Struth, Michael Wesely, Edwin Zwakman. Aspects of this contemporary urban photography are explored by expert international authors in various essays.

The work of these photographers reveals a well-nigh extraterrestrial beauty of urban liminal spaces and sites in transformation. Over recent years they have therefore provided inspiration for a whole new way of looking at the city. Thanks to their gaze, places that were once considered 'ugly', such as port and industrial zones, have acquired a new visual quality, which now sometimes even serves as inspiration for the design of public spaces and buildings.

The diversity of the works reveals the complexity and versatility of the urban environment, which can perhaps be better described in images rather than in words. The significance of this publication, intended for everyone who is personally or professionally concerned with the contemporary city, lies in the photographer's provocative, self-willed view of our surroundings.