Hasta La Ideas

Photographer Manuel Alvarez Diestro has sent us these photographs documenting growing high-rise cities in Asia.

Above and top: Busan, South Korea

The Natural series illustrates high-rise buildings situated on city peripheries in China, South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan.

Above: Busan, South Korea

Each photograph depicts the contrasts between the large scale urban developments and the surrounding landscapes.

Above: Busan, South Korea

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Above: Busan, South Korea

Below is some more text explanation from the photographer:

As a visual artist using photography as medium to challenge our appreciation of cities could not resist to the possibility of documenting my perspective of the Asian Metropolis nowadays.

Above: Hiroshima, Japan

In the peripheries of Bejing, Busan, Hiroshima, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Fukuoka, Seoul or Chongqing I discovered the multiple relations of the growing mega city and its surroundings. Somehow, I witnessed the confrontation between nature and the imposing satellite towns.

Above: Hong Kong

In these dehumanized landscapes I pretended to unveil the beauty that unfolds in the city limits of Asia’s new towns.

Above: Hong Kong

At the end, as I did with other photographic works I wished to portray the current changes in the world’s metropolis.

Above: Hong Kong

I truly believe that cities transform with the passage of time same as human beings.

Above: Hong Kong

The more aware we are of these changes and the fragil environments that they generate the more we will be capable of understanding ourselves.

Above: Hong Kong

While living in Cairo, Egypt I decided to travel to those Asian cities with a large amount of city developments and potentially vertical.

Above: Chongqing, China

My eyes were too accommodated in the horizontal new towns in the desert.

Above: Chongqing, China

I needed to challenge myself and search for new towns with a heavy concentration of structures in the city outskirts.

Above: Chongqing, China

At a first stage I selected Chongqing, Beijing, and Hong Kong. In a second trip I have traveled to South Korea, followed by Japan and later Thailand, and Malaysia. Previously I photographed other cities such as Manila, Macau, or Taipei.

Above: Chongqing, China

All the images were captured in an unplanned way and under the effects of the jet lag. I normally walked for hours in the margins where the metropolis meets the wilderness.

Above: Chongqing, China

Once in Hong Kong I even walked from the airport to the city and experienced the suburbs at a first hand. My strategy was to take any form of public transportation which would take me to the last station. From there, I got lost with the camera in purpose with no map or GPS. For the coming days I would cover the rest of the stations until I covered the city perimeter.

Above: Chongqing, China

This series of photographs that I entitled “Natural” are a product of pure enjoyment and unpredictable visual challenge.

Above: Chongqing, China

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Heygate Abstracted by Simon Kennedy	Shophouses 4 x 8 m by Peter Nitsch	Burj Khalifa by SOM