INTIMACY
INTIMACY series explores the unexpected unitions, juxtapositions, and tangencies of various architectural and urban parts. Besides their functional tasks or their aesthetic part in the overall design of the building and urban segment, the convergence of such components sometimes expresses the tension between their materialistic differences, sometimes represents a gentle gesture with a light touch to one another. The variations of these "intimacies" are reminders that buildings react to each other through architecture and urban design.
Photographed in Paris in 2021, on the left, stands the famous Arche de la Défense (1989) by Johan Otto von Spreckelsen, and on the right, there is CNIT Building (1958) by Robert Camelot. Built 30 years apart, these buildings have seemingly a distant relationship but from this angle, they begin to demonstrate their structural superiority in their own way. While CNIT benefits from its concrete curves and identifies itself with its modern elegancy, Arche refuses what an arch meant to be and exploits its materialistic and technological advantage to exist, and eventually becomes successful.
Modern cities are designed, planned and built through a rigorous process of multidisciplinary interaction but sometimes they fail to reflect the fundamental characteristics of our society, find their role in a historic urban context. The result can be either well proportioned, harmonious, unique landscape of architecture or complex, highly individual set of buildings adjacent to each other making it difficult to imagine the way they communicate and respond. In La Défense, the variety in architectural language proliferates the possibilities and composes a new contemporary urban context.
