ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHY

With a new season of the "Architecture and Film" series, the NRW Chamber of Architects and the Film Museum of the state capital Düsseldorf are focusing on architectural photography.

THE PHOTOGRAPHERS BERND AND HILLA BECHER

D 2015 - 94 min - DF

R/B: Marianne Kapfer C: Dirk Heuer, Enrico Wolf, Ahmed Aynan, Marianne Kapfer

In the 19th century, photographs and films about industrial architecture were two important ways of celebrating the monumental power of the industrial revolution. In the 1950s, Bernd (1931 - 2007) and Hilla Becher (1934 - 2015) developed a completely different approach. They soberly and objectively documented evidence of a disappearing industrial landscape in Germany. Over the course of ten years, they developed a conceptual artistic practice that focused in particular on the form of the photographed objects, viewing them as sculptures and organizing them into typologies through a comparative arrangement.

The German filmmaker Marianne Kapfer worked closely with Hilla Becher on this documentary from 2002 to 2015. The last addendum in the film is an interview with Max Becher. The couple's child is now a photographer himself. The footage filmed at the original locations illustrates how much the Bechers' photographs make visible. Although the documentary also deals with the couple's actual collaboration, it focuses - without heroization - on the groundbreaking work that continues to inspire new generations of photographers and artists today.