Thomas Struth - Unconscious Places - 2020

The inimitable style of Thomas Struth is the protagonist of this new compact edition of his extraordinary collection of urban views, realized between 1970 and 2010.

Thomas Struth is one of the best-known photographers to emerge from the Becher school. In this famous volume, Struth presents a series of urban glimpses of cities such as Edinburgh, Lima, Pyongyang, Naples and New York, all captured under similar conditions: devoid of human activity. Struth defines these banal buildings, deserted streets and anonymous façades as "unconscious places," environments that acquire meaning only thanks to the observer. Captured with exquisite technical mastery and presented with a powerful and sober neutrality, Struth's images allow us to fully appreciate the character of a city, from the telephone cables high above to the sidewalk below. The illuminating essay by renowned sociologist Richard Sennett reveals how Struth's sober and lucid photography leads the viewer to draw their own conclusions, rather than imposing a predefined perspective. The interaction that arises between photographer, viewer and landscape could be the key to understanding how architecture influences our daily life.

Thomas Struth is one of the most well-known contemporary German photographers. His works have been shown in numerous exhibitions, including those at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, the Whitechapel Gallery in London and the Haus der Kunst in Munich. He lives between Berlin and New York.

Richard Sennett is a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics. He is the founding director of the New York Institute for the Humanities and in 2018 he was named Officer of the Order of the British Empire and a member of the British Academy.