IWAN BAAN
Dutch photographer Iwan Baan is known primarily for images that narrate the life and interactions that occur within architecture. Born in 1975, Iwan grew up outside Amsterdam, studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and worked in publishing and documentary photography in New York and Europe.
Iwan fell unexpectedly into the subject of architecture in 2005 when he proposed to Rem Koolhaas that he document a project by the architect's firm OMA. The proposal led to his first major project, the documentation of the construction of OMA's China Central Television (CCTV) building and Herzog & de Meuron's completed National Olympic Stadium, both in Beijing. Iwan collaborates with the world's foremost architects, photographing institutional, public and private projects by Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron, SANAA, Morphosis, Frank Gehry, Toyo Ito, Steven Holl, Diller Scofidio Renfro and Zaha Hadid, and young architects like Sou Fujimoto, Selgas Cano among others. His work is characterized by the portrayal of people in the architecture, the context, society and environment around architecture. He also completes documentary projects on social initiatives such as schools, libraries and community centers in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Iwan's images appear frequently in The New York Times, Domus, Abitare and The New Yorker, among others.
December 2011: Iwan Baan was named one of the 100 most influential people in contemporary architecture world by the magazine Il Magazine dell'Architettura on occasion of their 100th issue.
Statements of the author: "... my work is about architecture documentation, what people do in an area where space is what is around. I do not care super clear shots at the building."
