The city inhabits me: space, topology, and Gabriele Basilico’s Milan: Ritratti di Fabbriche
- Submitting institution
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The University of Westminster
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- qx43q
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
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10.1080/13602365.2019.1704832
- Title of journal
- Journal of Architecture
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 1070
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 8
- ISSN
- 1360-2365
- Open access status
- Compliant
- Month of publication
- February
- Year of publication
- 2020
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- This article re-reads the work of a key c20th photographer, Gabriele Basilico, situating his work on an alternative historical trajectory than that of the New Topographics exhibition, with which it is typically linked. Additionally, Shinkle proposes a critical distinction between topological and topographic approaches to the representation of built space. As a heuristic device, topology focuses not just on the visual and formal elements of built space, but thinks holistically about the nature of this space, and the various actors and forces that shape it. The notion of topological space has received extremely limited attention in photographic discourse and has never previously been applied to Basilico’s work.
Shinkle’s conceptualisation of this critical distinction is supported with reference to Henri Lefebvre’s differentiation between abstract and lived space, alongside a close examination of Basilico’s original photobook and its reception, and contemporaneous movements in photography. The article examines Basilico’s photographs of built space as documents of the socio-political and geographical specificity of sites, which are shaped by multiple and often contradictory histories, processes and agents. The scope of the research is thus not limited to a specific moment in the history of photography. The article signals that the ethical and political implications of a topological engagement with space has implications for adjacent fields such as architecture, urban studies, and cinema.
Shinkle’s article is part of her broader research, involving the historical critique of New Topographics. Rather than seeing this as a unique event, her work shows that the exhibition was part of a wider and more geographically diverse process of photographic exploration that took place alongside shifting capital flows reshaping the global landscape in the decades following World War II. The ideas presented in this article are connected to her other works on this theme, published by Routledge and Yale University Press.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
