BERND AND HILLA BECHER
German
The documentary works of Bernd and Hilla Becher
contributed substantially to the public recognition
of photography as an art form in Germany and are
the foundation for much of the acceptance of
straight photography in the late twentieth century
on a par with painting, sculpture, or other tradi-
tional forms. The Bechers are best known for their
Typologien(Typologies), which document the van-
ishing industrial architecture of the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Their series of chiefly
black-and-white photographs feature frontal views
of factories, blast furnaces, gas storage tanks, cool-
ing towers, tipples, mineheads, water towers, and
other industrial structures. Over the years, they
have constructed approximately 200 comprehen-
sive documentary collections, each consisting of
50 to 100 images according to each structure’s com-
plexity and size. In displaying these photos in exhi-
bitions, the Bechers presented serial arrangements
of nine to fifteen photographs, creating grids of
imagery. Series include Zeche Zollern 2, Dort-
mund-Bo ̈vinghausen; Zeche Hannibal, Bochum-
Hofstede; andGutehoffnungshu ̈tte, Oberhausen. In
books, the photographs were published in a dis-
tinctly conceived typological design, with each
photo the same size and presented in sequence.
Among these are Fachwerkha ̈user des Siegener
Industriegebietes(Munich: Schirmer/Mosel, 1977);
Fabrikhallen(Munich: Schirmer/Mosel, 1994); and
Gasbeha ̈lter(Munich: Schirmer/Mosel, 1993).
The Bechers’ collaboration began in 1959 at the
Staatliche Kunstakademie (Academy of Art) in
Du ̈sseldorf, where Hilla, ne ́e Wobeser, was em-
ployed in the department of photography. Bernd,
who had studied printmaking, painting, and litho-
graphy at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Stuttgart
from 1953 to 1956, was studying typography at
Du ̈sseldorf from 1957 to 1961. Hilla who had had
contact with the medium at a very early age through
her mother, studied photography until 1961, the
year she married Bernd Becher. After finishing
school, she completed a three-year photography
apprenticeship in her hometown, Potsdam, with
Walter Eichgru ̈n, a member of a famous family
dynasty of photographers. Her training included
architectural photography, a genre that already fas-
cinated her, and she learned the basic principles that
would later serve her well in her first collaborative
work with Bernd Becher, photographs of the
mining complex Alte Burg in the area of Germany
called Siegerland.
The Siegerland area was home to Bernd Becher,
who was born in the city of Siegen in 1931. The
industrial landscape of this ore-rich region, with its
iron and steel production and the half-timber con-
struction of the worker housing complexes, became
central to the drawings and painting that Bernd
undertook upon finishing his training at Stuttgart.
But the speed at which change was occurring to this
largely nineteenth century architecture, with much
of it being dismantled, prompted Becher to move
from the time-intensive art of drawing to photogra-
phy. Although he had initially taken up the camera
as an aid in creating his paintings, through photo-
graphy he could record and thus preserve the indus-
trial landscape in a more efficient manner with
more accurate detail.
The Bechers’ collaboration is unique in that they
share all aspects of making their art, from locating
sites, negotiating with property owners and local
authorities, setting up the camera to making the
exposures and printing the final works. It was as
collaborators that they developed the characteristic
‘‘Becheresque’’ visual language, which assumes the
frontal focus captures the most objective view possi-
ble of their subjects. These straight-on perspectives
are taken from an elevated vantage point that avoids
as many distractions as possible, and removes ele-
ments that could designate a specific place in time.
The centered viewpoint presents the subject occupy-
ing the middle of the final print, largely filling the
picture. The light—always natural—is diffuse and
shadowless, as the couple photographs under over-
cast skies during hours of the day and seasons of the
year—spring and fall—that are most amenable to
capturing such light. Because most situations they
photograph do not permit an isolated view of the
individual architectural elements within a complex
of industrial structures, the Bechers frequently
enlarge details from larger groupings and present
them as stand-alone images.
Although the lighting is flat and without strong
contrast, the images they capture are unfailinglyBECHER, BERND AND HILLA