Kindel: Portraits of missing architectures

Abstract

The photographic production of Kindel was a good ally for postwar Spanish Architecture. The photographer tried to eliminate figurativism and documentary-storytelling from his work. He indeed, started the research that ended with the Image decontextualizion. For two decades, his abstract compositions enabled Architecture to depart and to lose his standard position, eager to be “modern.” Shapes lost predictability, missing the prominent position in his Images. In the minimizing process, forms maintained their presence, turning into imaginary and illusory stages; by increasing dramatic emotion and theatricality. Singular elements were easily perceptible, but they didn’t help to describe spaces, nor allow its imaginary reconstruction. His pictures, such a geometry-collage, resembled a scenary. Seemingly, Photography forgot about Architecture, by appropiating its Image and taking it prisoner. However, Photography contributed to architectural abstraction and modernization. They both became symbiotic entities, and they reinforced themselves in their languages update, just in the moment they equally needed it.