Slideshow: Spanish photographer Victor Enrich has manipulated his own architectural photography to create impossible and fantastical structures, like this tower block that splits into two as though being unzipped.
Shalom 1 and 2 Tel Aviv 2009 – 2 views dedicated to the most emblematic, and tallest for many years, skyscraper of Israel. His shape always invited me to zip it up and down and what’s inside… This view is taken from the window of a 2 floor house located in the historical Neve Tsdek (Oasis of Justice) neighbourhood…the house is an astonishing private museum of Madkot, the Israeli beach tennis, with more that 1 hundred rackets.
Other images show a house turned upside down, a vertical motorway and a seaside apartment block with balconies are abnormally stretched to face the water.
One shot provocatively shows a skyscraper in Israel taking the form of a gun, pointing towards the country’s enemies in the east.
Manuela is getting late München 2012 – My German private teacher is a very serious and organizes person… One day she got late…something as unexpected as finidng a building upside down! The picture is taken from the München born Sculpture Artsit Christian Engelmann’s living room’s window, while I stayed after my arrival to this wonderful city were I’m living now.
Enrich explains that the images “don’t pretend to talk directly about anything related to archtitecture or urbanism” but are “simply chosen to become a channel to express myself”.
Looping 2007 Riga – Mascavas Iela neighbourhood, from the Latvian movie director Liga Gaisa´s window facing the River Daugava. The bridge bends upwards when reaching the energy of the water. In the other side of the river, the TV building. In those years, a big pharaonic highway bridge was being built 2 miles south. The budget of this bridge was 3 or even 4 times the original while the society of Riga was starting to suffer from the the beginning of a deep crisis.
Captions were provided by the photographer.
Defense Tel Aviv 2010 – The First Opera Tower is by the sea, next to my home. The building is a gun pointing eastbound (where “evil” comes from…)
Medusa Tel Aviv 2011 – Second pic of the Orchid Hotel. Each balcony tries to get a better view towards the sea as the building is placed 90 degrees to it… bad bad bad.
Tongues Tel Aviv 2010 – The first house I see everytime I left home in Tel Aviv. An example of the Bauhaus style…wellknow for it’s pulcritude, and “German” order… except for this poor building…
Orchid Tel Aviv 2010 – First picture of the Orchid hotel taken from a construction site next to it. All hotels in TLV have their main entrance from behind, few meters up from the sea level… the entrance is also the back of the building… with the emergency staircase which in this case doesn’t clarify which is the direction to take in order to escape. TLV faces tourism the same way Miami does.
12 Ugly ducks München 2012 – A rational-poor-styled building from the 60s surrounded by 2 prominent neobaroque aristocraitc buildings. However, the aristocratic ones have lots of things to hide… Thanks good that the ugly duck shew us. 12 goes for the number of appartments located in this building.
VEF Remonts 2008 Riga – A massive 250 meter long brick made industrial factory located in front of my Squad. This is a view taken in the street that goes the Domina Shopping Mall, even bigger. Passing by, day after day, I always thought of a 200 m swimming pool in the the rooftop under a Chryptonitic Supermanish Glass Roof in the warmth.
Mailpark Tel Aviv 2009 – Number one of the 3 dedicated to the only one thing in Tel Aviv that is not white… the red postboxes. The pic is taken in the car park I was crossing every day direction my 10 month Hebrew Language course.
Opera Tel Aviv 2010 – One day I come to my office and I see that it has been eaten by a monstruous orange spherical creature. I take the day off. The orange goes as it is the opposite color of the light blue fo the glass. Opera goes for the name of the tower. The picture is taken from a construction site of the hospital in front of it.
Labanya Netanya 2011 – A hybrid for a wedding of a friend of mine. He is from Netania ( 50 north of TLV ), she is from Barcelona and they are currently living in L.A. The building is a mix of 3 places: 1, the famous beach of Netania, 2.- “La casa de les Punxes” a modernist building in Barcelona that she could see through her window every day and 3.- their current house in L.A. All together…as they’re getting married. Labanya goes for L.Angeles Barcelona netaNYA
52 Towers 2007 Helsinki – A merge between the Cathedral and the Panoramic Tower located next to the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. My love for this building comes from Jim Jarmusch “Night on Earth” movie. 2 architectonical periods connected by its white (pure) condition.
Mersand Tel Aviv 2010 – Inspired in the Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. This is the building that contains the Cafe Mersand, my favorite coffee shop in TLV. An old cafe from the 50s kept as it was after 3 decades of closing time. TLV is a bubble of isolation and leisure. It’s hard to believe that really cruel things are happening daily just a few miles away.
Tuna Tel Aviv 2011 – Another of my favorite cafe located on the main floor of the Mekorot building, the water company of TLV. The building opens up as the Meghilot rolls (the Jewish Torah) and a Tuna can that I ate in the desert in one of my several trekks.
Million 2009 Jerusalem – Former Hilton Hotel, in the independece Park, ending point of the Jerusalem’s Gay Pride. The ocre stone block is reduced to a slim facade holded by a metallic structure inspired in the rooftops of the Million Dollar Hotel in Los Angeles.
Reval City 3 2007 Riga – Piece number 3 of a series dedicated to the Reval hotel Latvija, the biggest hotel in the city, being observed from my appartments window in Lacplesa Iela. The series talks about cloning an element (the hotel) that is iconic for the city to the limits of banality. A 90 meter high blue prisma made of glass in contrast with the brick and wooden older buildings of the city.
Roofs Tel Aviv 2011 – King George-Alenby streets crossing, the heart of the city. TLV is in the middle east…but Central Europe is there, as you can see. Most of my frineds in Tel Aviv are Jewish coming from Europe.
Deportation Tel Aviv 2011 – Unfinished picture that what I was making when I got deported by the Ministry of Interior due to have become a public figure in TLV. Their argument is that i was not alloed to do art in TLV porting a Tourist Visa. The buildings are the Aizrieli Center Mall and Office Complex taken (that is funny) at the entrance of the Ministry of Interior Headquarters. The pic tries to empty the interior as, probably, nothing what happens in there is really important to me.
Barnawood Barcelona 2011 – A fast exercise that tries to explain the process of transformation that my home town, Barcelona, is suffering in the last years in terms of low class tourism.
