Epics in the Everyday: Photography, Architecture, and the Problem of Realism

Architecture and photography share the condition of being suspended between fine art and craft. Realism is considered a given, something that happens almost by default. From the moment it is taken, a photograph is understood to be a record of what was in front of the camera—just as a building, as soon as it is inhabited, becomes the fixed backdrop for everyday life.

In Epics in the Everyday, Jesús Vassallo explores this condition, tracing a series of collaborations between architects and photographers from the postwar years up to the present. Consistently, the subject matter of these collaborations is the built environment, which presents architects and photographers—in different ways—with a mirror that challenges the idea of realism in their respective disciplines. Beyond casting a diagonal light on important developments within the two individual disciplines, the book chronicles an alternative history of both modern architecture and photography and builds a case for a specific type of realism found at their intersection.