Variations On a Dark City
by Espen Dietrichson

The buildings of Lyon are pulled apart in these impossible photographs by Norwegian artist Espen Dietrichson.

The series is entitled Variations On a Dark City and forms part of the artist’s One of Many Unusual Moments exhibition on show at the Galerie Roger Tator in Lyon.

For each image the walls and roof of a building are moved apart into the sky, just like the exploded axonometric diagrams drafted by architects.

“The series of modified or levitated architecture started as my first interest when I went to art academy,” Dietrichson told Dezeen.

Above: exhibition view is by David Desaleux

Explaining his technique, he said: “The photos are made half manually and half digitally. The technical drawing of the explosion is hand-drawn on paper, and after the first cut and paste almost all of the end-process is digital, before the silkscreening.”

Other manipulated photography on Dezeen includes a tower block that looks like it’s being unzipped and landscapes that are distorted into circles.

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• Architecture