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For days, the jungle sky cascaded in shimmering sheets. Crouched on the forest floor, a shivering proto-human trained his gaze on nearby palm frond, staring as it gently cupped and shunted the downpour. After some time, he curiously tugged the leaf overhead. A pleasant warmth enveloped his brain stem. Hastily, he harvested more leaves and draped them in the branches above. Of basic necessity, the first man-made structure was born.
In lockstep, the evolution of the structure advanced with homo sapiens' socioeconomic trajectory. Each passing eon yielded more sophisticated and robust shelters, eventually permanent. Societies sprouted, and functional differentiation commenced. Agriculture begat the storage building - worship, the church - animal husbandry, the barn - commerce, the road - and with urban dwelling, halls of government, markets, sidewalks, and sewers. Burgeoning populations spurred revolutions in industry and technology, and further waves of specialization - factories, airports, radio towers, and so on - culminating in the sprawling symbiotic webs that surround us today.
The sheer ubiquity of the modern structure sometimes clouds its utilitarian roots. Each is a functional monument to a need, satisfied via the application of thought, brawn, and aesthetic desire - a charismatic creation that I cannot help but to romanticize.
Functionally Structural is an ongoing series of black-and-white studies that explore the broad spectrum of man-made structures, available as limited edition prints.
Click on a thumbnail above for more information about a particular photograph.