Helen is sitting in a bright room with black and white furniture and some houseplants in the back. She wears a white shirt over a black sleeveless jumber. Her hair is dark brown and goes down to her shoulders.Helen is sitting in a bright room with black and white furniture and some houseplants in the back. She wears a white shirt over a black sleeveless jumber. Her hair is dark brown and goes down to her shoulders.Helen is sitting in a bright room with black and white furniture and some houseplants in the back. She wears a white shirt over a black sleeveless jumber. Her hair is dark brown and goes down to her shoulders.Helen is sitting in a bright room with black and white furniture and some houseplants in the back. She wears a white shirt over a black sleeveless jumber. Her hair is dark brown and goes down to her shoulders.

Creative Heads: Hélène Binet – photographer

Creative Heads: Hélène Binet – photographer

6
 
July 2022

Over the past 30 years, Hélène Binet has travelled the world to photograph historic and contemporary buildings as well as projects in the making. Considered ‘the architect’s photographer’ by many, Binet has worked closely with Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind and Peter Zumthor among others, who have turned to her to interpret their work.

Swiss-French photographer Hélène Binet studied photography at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Rome, the city in which she spent most of her formative years. Over a period of more than 35 years Binet has captured both contemporary and historic architecture. Being a fervent advocate of analogue photography, she works with film exclusively and firmly believes ‘the soul of photography’ to lie in its relationship with the instant. Her work has been exhibited internationally including a solo exhibition at the Power Station of Art in Shanghai in 2019 and a retrospectiveof her work at the Royal Academy of Art in London in 2021. Whether it is 1970sbrutalism or an 10thcentury City church, Binet’s powerful imagesmanage to reveal the light, space and form that unites architecture.

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“It’s important to know the style of the architecture, what the architect is searching for, what are the important things. Obviously, I’m not going to photograph Peter Zumthor in the same way as Zaha Hadid, they come from different worlds. Zaha comes from Iraq, from acountry full of light, hot, complex… I’m just talking about some very basic things. Zumthor comes from a valley where you have sun that comes at a very specific hour in the day. Sun is the thing that you want to capture and bring to your building. Light is really important, a kind of jewellery that you protect.”

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