Framing Modernism exhibition, London

Modernism, though not yet long deceased, has been experiencing something of a resurgence of late, and what better way to celebrate this return to all things man-made, than with a seminal exhibition of Italian modernist photography.

Adopting over 100 vintage photographs from the RIBA British Architectural Library, the latest exhibition to grace London's Estorick collection of Modern Italian Art, is an exhaustive exploration of the way mid-century photographers shaped the face of modernist architecture.

See more photographs from the Framing Modernism exhibition

Almost entirely achromatic, the photographs - from maestros including Gino Barssoti and Giorgio Casal - take a look at the changes of formal perspective adopted by the photographers of the time.

In response to the changing architectural forms defining their urban spaces, photographers began to produce images that played formally with the new shapes (curves, lines and diagonals) and materials (chromes, concretes and glass) that were beginning to swathe their collective skylines.

Highly tonal, formally dynamic and sharply abstracted, the photographs frame (hence the title) influential modernist buildings from the time, including Enrico del Debbio's Foro Mussolini in Rome and the Stazione Santa Maria Novella in Florence.

7 May 2009 | Art