Introduction

What is the Forgettable Buildings project?

For the past few years I've spent considerable time photographing buildings which are often ignored or overlooked by contemporary society. However, very little of that time was devoted to thinking about why these places exist in the first place or to considering their role in the modern urban landscape. I'm not interested so much in the literal histories of individual places. Rather, I'm interested in how these places -- as architectural leftovers of the built environment -- are created, seen, ignored and criticised by society and how photography provides a way to romanticise their otherwise mundane existence. This project is an attempt to coherently assemble ideas about these places and act as a venue for photography and opinions about architecture.

What is the purpose of this web site?

While I have my own opinions about a number of central ideas for this project, I hope to provide a way to invite critical discussion from visitors to the site. This serves two goals. One, I expect visitors to challenge the ideas in a way that causes me to either clarify or reconsider various opinions. I'm hoping that critique throughout the process of development will result in a stronger conclusion. And two, on a more practical note, by forcing myself to construct and publish an opinion on a fairly regular basis I should be able to advance the project in measurable increments.

Moving Forward

At this point my goal is to publish on a weekly basis with the period between postings to provide time for any discussion on individual topics. The format will be something of a cross between a blog/photoblog and forum.

And with all that having been said, here's the first post.