Iwan BAAN

Profile

1975 Born in Alkmaar, The Netherlands
-1995 Studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, and and worked in publishing and documentary photography in New York and Europe.
2005 Began working with Rem Koolhaas, documenting the construction of CCTV in Beijing。
2010 Recipient of the Julius Shulman Photography Award. Featured in Museum of Modern Art exhibition, Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement。
2011 Published Brasilia--Chandigarh: Living With Modernity and No More Play about Los Angeles。

About works / performance

I am interested in documenting the life and interactions that occur within architecture and the urban fabric. I do not have a formal background in architecture, yet I entered the field in 2005 when I proposed to make an interactive exhibition for Rem Koolhaas's exhibition on the History of Europe. From this proposal, I began my first major project, the documentation of the construction of OMA's China Central Television (CCTV) building and Herzog & de Meuron's completed National Olympic Stadium, both in Beijing. In my documentation of Beijing under constant transformation during the Olympics, I also was intrigued in documenting the life of the workers and the people who use the buildings.
With this natural curiosity towards the life within cities, I started to work with architects including Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron, SANAA, Morphosis, Frank Gehry, Toyo Ito, Steven Holl, Atelier Bow-Wow and Sou Fujimoto. Through collaboration with architects, I have also carried out research on the life and development of cities.