images Iwan Baan

Tokyo
“This was taken while working on a book with Atelier Bow-Wow. You can see from high up that Tokyo has no grid, it’s this completely organic city, developed along waterways and old property lines – completely unlike the grids of LA or New York. The huge building in the centre is like a large flyover connecting all the underground and overground highways, a central nerve system for the city.”

Todd Saunders, Fogo Island, Newfoundland
“The staunch people of Fogo Island, on the most eastern tip of North America, relied on cod fishing and barter until the 20th century, when currency was first introduced. Todd Saunders is designing several studios for artists there, part of an entrepreneur’s noble vision to revive the economy through art, film, and cultural exchange. The studios sit on stilts and, like the island, are completely off the grid.”

OMA, Seattle Public Library, Seattle
“I’m working on an exhibition with the Carnegie Museum of Art about landscape architecture and I took a helicopter to shoot the Olympic Sculpture Park. I’ve been to Seattle many times to shoot the Public Library, one of my favourite OMA projects, and each time I come back with a completely new view of it. This time I saw it very differently: like a crunched skyscraper, interwoven in the city fabric.”

OMA, Milstein Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca
“The building is this large box floating in between the old fabric of the campus. From the outside it looks like a ‘modest’ project but inside it’s spectacular. Sometimes you have to look hard to see it, but suddenly here with the autumn colours, wet and rain in the evening, the lights of the building started to reflect on the streets and there was a great moment where it came to life.”

OMA, Maggie’s Centre, Gartnavel
“To me, the building was a frame for looking at nature and the forest around it. It is all glass, and the roof is made out of glass and concrete. The glass reflects almost like mirrors and at certain points the building disappears and you can find yourself sitting at your computer in the middle of the forest.”

Toyo Ito, Toyo Ito Museum of Architecture, Omishima
“Ito’s own architecture museum is completely made out of steel on the tip of Omishima island in the Seto inland sea. It’s this dark, shiny building on top of a hill overlooking the landscape. At night the building almost disappears but with its different facets, all reflecting differently, it became this mysterious object merging with the landscape.”