Karl Lagerfeld: Konkret Abstrakt Gesehen

This volume collects new architectural photographs by Karl Lagerfeld, who has now amassed a spectacular oeuvre in this field, including, among others, his superb images of recent and celebrated buildings by Zaha Hadid (one of his favorite architects working today) and Tadao Ando. Central to Lagerfeld’s approach are the architectonic details of these buildings; the title Konkret Abstrakt Gesehen (Concrete Seen Abstractly) conveys this guiding premise of his vision. For he sees architecture as not only functional, but as a source of abstract pattern, forms, lines and textures, defined by light in space, and as an epitome of durability. As Lagerfeld has stated,“ We need houses as we need clothes, but even more so and they have to last longer. That is why the cycles of architecture’s evolutions are so much longer.” In photographing the buildings he loves, however, Lagerfeld’s ultimate aim is not primarily to document the structures he surveys, but to re-conceive them for and in photographic form. Konkret Abstrakt Gesehen is the latest chapter in Lagerfeld’s ongoing photographic interpretation of architecture, previously documented in such books as Schloflhotel, Modern Italian Architecture and Villa Jako, all published by Steidl.