Iwan Baan 52 Wochen, 52 Städte

In his project 52 Weeks, 52 Cities developed exclusively for Marta Herford, Iwan Baan takes the viewer on a one-year photographic journey around the world – always on the lookout for ingenious homes in unexpected places and outstanding construction projects. A characteristic of his pictorial language is the engagement with the close relationship between humans and architecture, between social use and the various spatial situations. The catalog features 52 photographs from last year accompanied by personally commentaries by the photographer. These are sensitive encounters with everyday and extraordinary places all over the globe which Baan has put together to form an engaged commentary on human living and survival strategies. His documentation, for example, of a 45-storey, uncompleted skyscraper in Caracas occupied by around 750 families who are living "extra-legally" in a "vertical slum" has become one of his best known projects. Here and elsewhere the boundaries between architecture documentation and the interpretation of social living spaces become blurred. Locations included in the book: Nanping Village, Anhui Province, China; Dallas, Texas, USA; New York City, New York, USA; Port-au-Prince, Haiti; East Lansing, Michigan, USA; Watermill, New York, USA; Rikuzentakata, Japan; Osaka, Japan; Lens, Pas-de-Calais, France; Miami, Florida, USA; Larabanga, Northern Ghana; Traditional Lobi Village, Northern Ghana; Koutammakou, Togo; Lagos, Nigeria; Cairo, Egypt; Allahabad, India; Zhejiang Province, China; Higashimatsushima, Japan; Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Eemnes, the Netherlands; Monterrey, Mexico; Makoko, Lagos, Nigeria; Dakar, Senegal; Basel, Switzerland; Weil am Rhein, Germany; Sanmenxia, Henan Province, China; Beijing, China; Ichihara, Japan; Inujima, Seto Inland Sea, Japan; London, England; Lens, Pas-de-Calais, France; Aarhus, Denmark; Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Baku, Azerbaijan; Tuyoq Village, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China; Bishkarim Village, Xinjiang Province, China; Sanmenxia, Henan Province, China; Cape Dorset, Nunavut, Canada; São Paulo, Brazil; Altamira, Brazilian Amazon; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Shodoshima, Japan; Setonomori, Japan; Vienna, Austria; Ise, Japan; Matsushima, Japan; Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China