Iwan Baan

Place: Alkmaar

Born: 1975

Biography:

Iwan Baan is a Dutch photographer born in 1975 in Alkmaar, Netherlands. He is known primarily for images that narrate the life and interactions that occur within architecture. Baan grew up outside Amsterdam, studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and worked in publishing and documentary photography in New York and Europe. His love for photography goes back to his twelfth birthday, when his Grandmother gave him his first camera. Baan’s photographs reveal our innate ability to re-appropriate our available objects and materials, in order to find a place we can call our own. Examples of this can be seen in his work on informal communities where vernacular architecture and placemaking serve as examples of human ingenuity. Baan’s artistic approach has given matters of architecture an approachable and accessible voice. He has challenged a long-standing tradition of depicting buildings as isolated and static by representing people in architecture and showing the building's environment, trying 'to produce more of a story or a feel for a project' and 'to communicate how people use the space'. He has photographed buildings by many of the world's most prominent architects, including Rem Koolhaas and Toyo Ito. He is 'one of the most widely published' photographers in the world. In 2010, he won the first annual Julius Shulman Photography Award, named after the most famous architectural photographer of the 20th century. In 2012, he took the image of Manhattan after Hurricane Sandy that made the cover of New York City magazine. In April 2016, Baan received the AIA New York's Stephen A. Kliment Oculus Award.