POTY 2019 Winners and Special Mentions

Here are the winners and special mentions from Photo Of The Year 2019.

08.10.2019

First prize

Sky Russell (United States)
Harvard

Motivation from the jury:
The winner of the competition presents a series of subtle and intimate photos of a Japanese dwelling and its resident, a weaver, demonstrating a sensibility and empathy that brings us close to the life of an artist. The nature of the architectural portrait is similar to that of a human portrait. The photos weave, so to speak, a narrative about something considered local and Japanese; however, at the same time pointing at something essential and universal. What we see is an almost non-existing architecture in close proximity with nature and its resident, who seems to be one with her dwelling. The open doors and windows combined with the soft lense, create a certain atmosphere between the outside and the inside, which makes nature, human and architecture unite. A poetic narrative of an ordinary, almost atmospheric daily life.

Sky Russell

Sky Russell

Sky Russell

Sky Russell

Sky Russell

Second prize

Venla Rautajoki (Finland)
Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture
The roofscape of the obscure

Motivation from the jury:
The series represents a classic photographic format in high technical quality. The black and white photos strengthen the focus on form and structure, on light and shadow and evoke a sense of timelessness. However, time is present in the tower clock and in the photo of the man who´s body works as clock hands, telling us that this is a piece of contemporary urban architecture. The photos capture the gently curved domes and mark out various scales for human activities in the square. The hill-like shapes are sloped, allowing people to walk, lie, and play over them. Through the series, we are introduced to structural domes and the light they simultaneously draw to the underground creating a new urban topography that enables people of all ages to play and interact with the architecture. An excellent example of architecture making people behave in beautiful ways.

Venla Rautajoki

Venla Rautajoki

Venla Rautajoki

Venla Rautajoki

Venla Rautajoki

Third prize

Jan Krek (Slovenia)
University of Ljubljana
Bucharest Periphery

Motivation from the jury:
A photographer who knows what he is doing, who has a clear concept and a clear translation of transforming the concept into the photographs.
Strictly composed, but full of details of life in an overlooked zone, on the border between the established and the not established society. A space full of life, people, and animals, an unknown territory where people try to make a living in a self-built, autonomous no man´s land, on a site under construction with whatever materials at hand.
A place of anonymous architecture, a place of apparently everyday life, however, the children’s´ appearance behind the building blocks indicate that architecture and facilities are poor, that school, education, playgrounds and shopping facilities are without reach. But life remains. All done and observed in a neutral, respectful way.

Jan Krek

Jan Krek

Jan Krek

Jan Krek

Jan Krek

Special Mentions

Antonio Ramón Quintero Luna (Mexico)
Centro Universitario de Arte Arquitectura y Diseño Universidad de Guadalajara
Another kind of Temple

Motivation from the jury:
The jury finds this an excellent example of the ability to grab the moment, a situation, and through a series of photos, create a narrative of ceremony and tradition linked to architecture and heritage. The couple who celebrates a very special ceremony, a rewedding, close to their ancestors and in an architectural setting, in that way, defines their culture and history. In some ways, the photos are surreal, with the pompous, elderly bride, but the extreme presence of the couple also reveals a moment of seriousness, here in the middle of the sacred remains of a culture erased. The frozen moment of the re-wedded couple is the story of what architecture offers and means, how architecture is always part of our identity and self-understanding.

Antonio Ramón Quintero Luna

Antonio Ramón Quintero Luna

Antonio Ramón Quintero Luna

Antonio Ramón Quintero Luna

Antonio Ramón Quintero Luna

Special Mentions

Maria Jose Ureta (Chile)
Universidad Andres Bello
Redefine an ornament as a cultural need and manifestation of ingrain

Motivation from the jury:
This series represent people and architecture without showing any people, however, you feel the presence of people and life being lived. The presence of human interaction is there without children playing or people walking. The residents – not the architect – have just left the building, but their remains add new ornaments to the existing architecture. There is no hierarchy in the composition consisting of quadratic squares. The soft morning or evening light, the colours and the slightly worn down buildings, tell the story of the lived everyday life and about people complementing the original architecture in an ornamental way.

Maria Jose Ureta

Maria Jose Ureta

Maria Jose Ureta

Maria Jose Ureta

Maria Jose Ureta

Special Mentions

Amir Tabatabaei (Iran)
Universität der Künste Berlin
Cities without people

Motivation from the jury:
This proposal uses a documentary method of discussing architecture and is, at the same time, strictly conceptual. By analyzing, reconstructing and re-recording historical facts, it uses maps and photos to raise the questions “For whom are we building?” and “Who owns the city?” Thereby the proposal points in a very direct way – and differs from the other proposals – to an ongoing discussion about people and architecture and for whom architecture is for.
The proposal is not about aesthetics or composition; it is about evidence and arguments. The architecture in that sense plays a different role asking us to take a position.

Amir Tabatabaei

Amir Tabatabaei

Amir Tabatabaei

Amir Tabatabaei

Amir Tabatabaei

Special Mentions

Luciana Faustin (Italy)
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo
Unradom

Motivation from the jury:
This is a very contemporary submission, raising relevant and ongoing questions such as surveillance of citizens – and their architecture – and authorship. When the photographer is a machine or a robot, how can we talk about authorship? And who owns the photos? Google or us? It´s a new way of using photographic technology for surveillance purposes, for protection, for wayfinding or for commercial purposes. Depicting the same anonymous corner with intervals and from various angles, the proposal unfolds a narrative of urban life, from random bypassers to a sudden dwelling of a homeless.
The proposal is unsentimental; what we are witnessing is a monitoring of everyday life with or without our knowledge or acceptance. And that goes for the architecture too.

Luciana Faustin

Luciana Faustin

Luciana Faustin

Luciana Faustin

Special Mentions

Ishita Gautam (India)
CEPT UNIVERSITY
Life Negotiating In-between spaces

Motivation from the jury:
The jury highlights the abstraction of the proposal with its flat on – top view position in a composition where the organisation of the objects in space becomes a way of mapping human activity and life.
Especially the first two pictures play on the ambiguity of what is up and down, what is elevation and what is plan, where the rusty roof plates in our imagination could be hanging clothes as well.
The photos are approaching the subject in a delicate way, without pushing the framing with a wider lens, maintaining the sensation of the narrow, urban-dwelling, and its importance for the intimacy and social life of its residents.

Ishita Gautam

Ishita Gautam

Ishita Gautam

Ishita Gautam

Special Mentions

Anna Bukowy (Poland)
Poznan University of Technology
An Architecture In Its Lack

Motivation from the jury:
A very poetic and original way of making us think of what is missing. The proposal has no buildings, no horízons, no architectural interference, only children playing on and in spite of the naked asphalt. A certain atmosphere of tristesse and solitude in the almost cartoonlike narrative, where the cropping makes the children look as if they are locked up.
An engaging proposal and a call for society to pay attention to urban architecture. The children all look down, except for one boy jauntily looking back, directly towards the photographer. Through a lens.

Anna Bukowy

Anna Bukowy

Anna Bukowy

Anna Bukowy

Anna Bukowy

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