This article was taken from the October 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Filip Dujardin was frustrated. Having spent years as an architectural photographer documenting other people's achievements, he too wanted to design buildings. But edifices unconfined by the forces that stymied other artists, such as regulation, compromise - even the laws of physics. So in 2007 he set about realising his constructions another way: with the aid of his camera, a computer and some plastic blocks. "In the beginning, I made models with my children's Lego," explains the 40-year-old from his studio in Ghent, Belgium. "I photographed the models to use as a kind of digital canvas on which to stick the walls,windows and doors of other buildings."
Nowadays, the process is more honed. First, Dujardin creates a virtual structure in Google SketchUp, a 3D-modelling tool.
After settling on a perspective for what will be the final artwork, he converts the model into a 2D line drawing in Photoshop, and sets about finding a "source building". He prefers older structures, which provide a more authentic feel. "Buildings from the 60s or 70s have a kind of patina," he says, "like archaeological discoveries."
Dujardin takes dozens of photographs of them from various perspectives. "To achieve a result that's not too obviously computer manipulated, it takes a lot of shooting," he says. He then carefully layers the images on to the model in Photoshop and manually adds shadows and contrast, using the source pictures as a guide. The final piece is printed on ten limited-edition canvas copies. After garnering an enthusiastic response in Belgium, his works have been shown in Dubai and the US, and will be on display in Zurich's Museum für Gestaltung from August 31. "What interested me was to make surrealistic architecture photorealistic," he explains. "People think my structures are real.
So, I suppose that's my main purpose accomplished."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
