Authentication of space: The photograph as a raw material for architectural production


Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mimarlık Fakültesi, Mimarlık Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2009

Öğrenci: ASLI KOCA

Danışman: AYŞEN SAVAŞ SARGIN

Özet:

This thesis is a critical reconsideration of the relationship of architectural production with its unique mode of representation: “photography.” Photography has been interpreted essentially as a technique and a visual medium to document architecture in general. The “photograph,” in this sense, is regarded as a representational form of documentation and an artistic and material expression of architecture. Besides this conventional value, this study argues that photography not only provides a new medium for the reinterpretation of architectural space, but also a new material and technique for architectural production. In this respect, this study discusses photography as an emerging tool for architecture in which the photograph is conceived as a raw material. As in the manufacturing of a raw material in an industrial process, the main argument of this study is that as long as a photograph is processed with required components, it contributes to architectural production in a comparable manner. Even it has the potential to produce architectural space in its own right. To understand the nature of this architectural space supported by a variety of physical and non-physical characteristics of photography, this study compares two different ways of architectural production with the aid of photographs. Starting with the assumption that there is a radical change in the conception of photography in architecture from an immaterial quality to material essence, this study argues that the photograph is a raw material that can be used to authenticate architectural space from the initial idea to the built object. Therefore, drawing attention to the changed value of photography for architecture over time, the aim of this study is to establish a critical framework to understand and discuss this contemporary function of photography in architecture.