Architectural Photography: discussion hosted by Mark Shiel & Alice Clancy.

About

Please join us for a fascinating conversation about architectural photography - a key medium in disseminating knowledge and ideas about our built environment. Its creative process requires the presence of a photographer in time and place, witnessing the real world, then focusing attention on selected still images of buildings. These heighten our understanding of architecture while making the unseen seen. At the same time, many architectural photographers work commercially, documenting buildings according to a brief for a client (architect, developer, or property owner). This tension between art and function has been heightened in the digital age, in which architectural photography is just one type of ‘visualisation’. In response, this roundtable discussion asks: What makes architectural photography valuable as a medium? How is it evolving to meet changes in technology and the built environment? How can we encourage its growth and appreciation?

Co-conveners

Alice Clancy is engaged in a multi-disciplinary practice involving architectural education, curation and photography. Her work, often collaborative, explores how the built environment shapes and is shaped by social and environmental contexts. She has held notable curatorial roles at La Biennale Architettura in Venice, her photography has been widely published, and she has provided academic leadership at UCD Architecture with a focus on climate literate, inclusive pedagogy.

Mark Shiel is Professor of Film, Media, and Urban Studies at King’s College London, where he teaches filmmaking and photography of the built environment. His most recent film is the 30-minute documentary Madingley (2024), about the architecture of war memorials. He has also published five books and numerous essays, most recently “Ed Ruscha’s Street Photos and the Cinematic Sequence Shot”, in Ed Ruscha’s Streets of LA (Getty Research Institute, 2025).

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