Blast Furnaces

Typological, repetitive, and at times oddly humorous, the Bechers' photographs of industrial structures are, in their cumulative effect, profoundly moving. Blast Furnaces represents a continuation of--but also a counterpoint to--the Bechers' earlier book Watertowers, in which basic functional elements were hidden or clothed in disguises. In their new book the prints record a purely functional and exposed architecture, built to contain heat, pressure and accumulations of gases, and unhindered by any outside constraints. The Bechers will represent Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1990.