silo city
Photographic essay
Date : 2016
Place : Buffalo, New York state
Structure : published by the Bauhaus Foundation
in collaboration with Jennifer Heinfeld
WEB : BAUHAUS
In the 1920's, European modernist referenced the grain elevators of Buffalo through a transatlantic image transfer; documenting the monumental concrete structures in Towards an Architecture (1923, Corbusier), International Architecture (1925, Gropius), and Amerika (1926, Mendelsohn).
In September 2014, the Bauhaus Lab traveled to Buffalo, New York to investigate their present day reality.
Visiting and experiencing the first grain elevators opened a new perspective on this common image. Beyond their symbol, they were real, local, sometimes domestic or even banal - they had traces of decay, their use evolved until abandonment - and yet they stood as monuments to their modern, industrial era.
Within the following photo essay, their polarized and juxtaposed story is explored - an inevitable and unquestioned monumentality amidst a fragile existence.
