precise and sharp, which can be attributed to work-
ing with a large-format Plaubel plate camera (13
18 cm) and utilizing relatively long exposure
times—generally 10 to 20 seconds, but occasionally
as long as 10 minutes. As a consequence, the struc-
tures seem both far and near, appearing three-
dimensions and extending out of the picture, but
also seeming unapproachable and at a timeless dis-
tance from the viewer. This combination of distant
absorption and concrete presence of the subject is
found historically in the painters, draftsmen, and
architects who, for example, sought to memorialize
ancient Rome. Like these artists, the Bechers are
concerned with preserving the images of buildings
threatened with destruction; but, uniquely, the
Bechers’ work focuses on practical architecture
and everyday, useful structures that are choreo-
graphed as monuments that should remain arrested
in memory. Without, they say, ‘‘making relics of old
industrial relics,’’ the Bechers would like ‘‘to create
a nearly perfect chain of distinctly manifested
forms’’ (Becher 1969). They are not concerned
with preserving buildings that have lost their eco-
nomic and social function; rather, they aim to take
stock of the passing world of heavy industry and
mining—with its blast furnaces, winding towers,
silos, factory buildings, gasometers, cooling towers,
and workers’ housing. Although such vernacular
architecture, whose function gave it its form—a
form for which engineers and factory operators
were largely responsible—has been documented by
others in both the nineteenth century and the early
years of the twentieth century, the Bechers’
approach has proven to be unique. For the Bechers
such themes serve as sources for new ideas about
photography and contemporary art, whereas in the
work of Albert Renger-Patzsch and Werner Mantz
in the 1920s, the objective was merely to document.
Inspired by the objective, encyclopedic, inventory-
like photography of the 1920s (such as August San-
der), the Bechers also borrowed elements codified in
nineteenth century architectural photography by
survey photographers working to preserve histori-
cal monuments: central focus, temporal neutrality,
elevated vantage point, monochrome, gray sky, and
the exclusion of human work and other signs of life.
Another important precursor of the Bechers’
work is that of Euge`ne Atget. Spurred by his perso-
nal desire, Atget set out to document old Paris as it
was facing rapid change around the turn of the
twentieth century. Another antecedent is the work
of Karl Blossfeldt. A professor of arts and crafts,
Blossfeldt made detailed close-up photos of parts of
plants and flowers centered on a neutral, illumi-
nated background. This made them appear concrete
and at the same time seem like abstracted orna-
ments. The origins for Blossfeldt’s photo-herbarium
can be found in Ernst Haeckel’sKunstformen der
Natur(1899–1904) or even in the descriptive botany
of Carl von Linne ́and gave rise to the kind of spatial
sorting of images adopted by the Bechers. This pre-
sentation allows a vivid tableau of the object that,
upon multiple viewings, preserves the individual
characteristics of various types of things yet creates
a typology. An example is the Bechers’ presentation
of gas storage tanks (Gas-holders[Germany, Bel-
gium, France, Britain, United States, 1966–1993])
in a grid five across and three deep, which creates a
tableaux of forms: spirals, telescoping shapes, disks,
and spheres. Characteristically presented in blocks
of nine, twelve, or fifteen photos, the Bechers’ clus-
ters of images enable the viewer to register them
simultaneously while still giving thorough attention
to each individual image.
Bernd Becher describes the path to typological
serialization of photos as a personal engagement
with the objects, which, when compared, reveal
their distinctive character. This process also conveys
the regional and national characteristics of certain
types of structures (Becher 1999, 2). In addition to
photographing in Germany, the Bechers worked in
England, Scotland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg,
and the United States. Mixing together the topogra-
phical and the narrative, the resulting series remove
the historical context for the various individual
structures, depriving them of their functional asso-
ciations and presenting them in isolation. By pre-
senting various categories of structures in sets of
photographs, most 1612 inches or smaller, their
individual architecture is made distinct and their
unique aesthetic qualities are revealed at the same
time that their similarities can be noted. The place
and the name of the industrial plant and the date of
the photograph are added as information that ame-
liorates against the tendency encouraged by this
mode of presentation to see these images as pure
plastic forms.
The Bechers’ critical reception in a purely artistic
context began in 1968 with a solo exhibit in the
Sta ̈dtisches Museum in Abteiberg, Mo ̈nchenglad-
bach, Germany. This was a year after their partici-
pation in the Leverkusen exhibit Konzeption—
Conception dedicated to conceptual art. Co-curator
of this exhibit was a gallery owner from Du ̈sseldorf,
Konrad Fischer, whose program concentrated
heavily on minimal and conceptual art. Through
him the Bechers came to know American minimal
sculptors Carl Andre and Sol LeWitt, California-
based conceptual artist and photographer John
Baldessari, and Richard Long, among others. TheBECHER, BERND AND HILLA