Water Towers [Hardcover]

Bernd Becher (Author), Hilla Becher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 1988

Hilla and Bernd Becher's cool, objective photographs of industrial structures have earned them a special position in international photography. Although their work is widely collected by American dealers and institutions and shown in New York galleries, this is the first time that it has been published in book form in the United States.The Bechers' 224 photographs of watertowers comprise a unique, single minded, even obsessive mission. They were taken from as many as 8 angles, over a period of 25 years, with a stylistic approach so consistent that photographs juxtaposed from the 1950s and 1980s suggest a minute to minute account deadpan portraits of unadorned metal, concrete, and wooden structures.Always taken in overcast skier, or in the hazy sunlight of industrial zones, these seemingly artless photographs belle the elaborate process and decisions involved in creating them elevating the camera on scaffolds or ladders, waiting for clouds to block the sun, enlisting the cooperation of plant foreman and security guards to remove all signs of human life from the scene.The Bechers refer to their photographs as "typology" or "typologies of topographies," situated between established categories such as art and photography. Their work is distancing, deliberately unglamorous, departing from the usual style of architectural photography. Almost everything they photograph is eventually demolished.Hilla and Bernd Becher began their collaborative enterprise in 1957, when they did a study of workers' houses in their native Germany. Through the years, their extensive documentation of industrial landscapes has taken them outside of Germany to France, England, Scotland, Wales, Holland, and the United States. The Bechers follow in a distinguished line of German photographers active in the Rhineland, including August Sander, Albert Renger-Patzsch, and Werner Manz, all of whom contributed in different ways to the definition of "objective" photography.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation)

About the Author

Bernd and Hilla Becher have collaborated since 1959. Founders of the internationally acclaimed Becher class at the Dusseldorf Art Academy, they have received numerous awards, including the Golden Lion at the 1990 Venice Biennale and the 2002 Erasmus Award. Bernd Becher retired as Professor at the Dusseldorf Academy of Art in 1999.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 223 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (July 15, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 026202277X
• ISBN-13: 978-0262022774
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 9.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #988,428 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stark, beautiful industrial photography, October 6, 2000

By 

S. Mcausland "Meistro" (Lake Worth, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Water Towers (Hardcover)

The Bechers have been documenting the aging world of the industrial age for decades. Their beautiful, unadorned and repetitious images are a mirror held up to the paradoxical existence of mankind's seemingly endless capacity for building, improving, compositing, developing, using, wasting and ultimately discarding the planet we live on. The Becher's photography allows these relics to speak for themselves without politicizing or disenfranchisement. These watertowers, photographed throughout Europe and North America, appear in formal portraiture in frame after frame, page after page, relentlessly. There are hundreds of them... And though the end result is one of post-modern ubiquity, the induvidual frames, when studied, unfold each watertower's unique story - whether built of cement or iron, tall or short, set on field stones or soaring on towering pylons. They attest an odd dignity, an assertion that they have their rightful place in this world despite their relative obsolescence. A beautiful book, challenging yet very formal, evocative and indicative without being biased or self-conscious. The Bechers show us an unfiltered, clear view into a dying part of our culture's heritage - that of the man-made industrial landscape.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Barren Beauty, June 19, 2000

By 

C. Destefano (New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Water Towers (Hardcover)

This book will be an inspiration to anyone who can recognize beauty in the most unconventional surroundings. The subject matter chosen by the artists fills the picture plane with a sense of isolation. The landscape, weather, and tower all blend to create a lifeless industrial portrait. No individual is evident in any of the photographs, yet we understand that man had his hand in all the photographer is capturing. The water towers were all created by humans however we are intentionally removed from the portraits to allow the viewer to focus on the architectural beauty of these structures. This book is a wonderful visual presentation of the water tower and it's many forms.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Repetition and Typology, February 4, 2003

By 

C. Gardner (Washington D.C., D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Water Towers (Hardcover)

These are beautiful photos of seemingly mundane structures--parts of our landscape, ignorable yet indispensible to our lives.
The Bechers photographed these architectural objects from the same position (slightly elevated, and just above the vantage point an observer would have) and under the same lighting conditions (usually overcast skies, which blends the texture of the surfaces into the sky). The clinical feeling which initially results quickly dissolves as the details loom large. An excellent work of photography and a typology of industrial practice.