Mick Hartley

The architectural photography of Hélène Binet:

Riverside Museum, Glasgow, 2011

Maxxi Museum, Rome, 2009

Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, USA, 2003

Landesgartenschau – LFone, Weil am Rhein, Germany, 1999

Port House, Antwerp, 2015

[Photos © Hélène Binet]

These structures are all by the late Zaha Hadid, who would appear to be Binet's favourite subject. It's easy to see why: all those fabulous structural shapes very much lend themselves to this kind of black and white art photography.

The whole in its surroundings, though, can often be less than the particular views, I think, for some of Hadid's buildings. That shot of Antwerp's Port House under construction, for instance, is a lot more powerful than the finished work. Yes it's dramatic, and you get the shape of the ship and all that, but it looks like it's just plonked imperiously on top of the original building, with no attempt at a sympathetic conversation between the two.