Architecture and photography: details in the shadow

Architecture communicates through shape, form, color, massing, context, symbolic and iconographic meanings. Meanings found in the detailing particularly stimulate an aesthetic experience according to the 20th century architect, Cario Scarpa, and theorist, Marco Frascari. Individuals, especially architecturally trained, when examining architecture, should recognize aesthetic content and symbols. Therefore, when looking at a particular building, each should take photographs that are similar in subject matter and context.

To test this hypothesis, photographic images from published and unpublished sources of Scarpa's Brion Tomb were collected and analyzed to determine whether individuals with architectural education capture the same aesthetic qualities that are to be found there. To gain a better understanding of the motivation for taking photographs submitted for this study, questions were asked of the participating students and faculty.

The findings of this study support the hypothesis that photographs can capture and communicate aesthetic qualities in architecture as demonstrated by the similar percentages of photographs found in each architectural image category, even though each participant recorded them at different times of the day and year.