Assignment 1: 4 - The Arabella High-Rise Building

The fourth and possibly final major building in this sequence of architectural studies is the 40 year old Arabella High-Rise Building, completed in 1969.  This is a mixed use building containing the Arabella Sheraton hotel with 467 bedrooms, 500 rental apartments and 100 offices and medical clinic.  It is a massive slab of concrete rising out of the Arabella Park development.  This was the first place I stayed when I first visited Munich for a job interview and so I have a soft spot for its strange architecture.

On my way to photograph the building I passed by the HypoVereinsBank once more and shot the following two frames, taking advantage of the colour balance between the steel grey building and the overcast sky.  rather than carefully align the verticals I have allowed the building to tip backwards a little producing a more human perspective on the building:

Arriving at my goal, I shot 3 images from different positions looking at the hotel through the surrounding trees, placing the building into its environment.  With each of these photographs I am trying to break up the flat structure of the building.

Closer up the unusual design of the facade containing rows of balconies becomes clear:

I prefer very flat front on shots of large buildings, deliberately minimizing perspective, focusing instead on texture and colour.  However, this building offers quite striking perspectives:

Moving around to the other side of the building and into the shopping area within Arabella Park, the building becomes a back drop against which I can juxtapose other buildings.  The following two images are alternate views stepping back around 25m between taking the two frames

In each of the above two photographs I have very specifically avoided inclusion of the sky to try and present a sense of enclosure and emphasize the height of the Arabella building. Stepping back even further diminishes the building, but adds further context

I now find that the work flow is a smooth process and requires limited active application in order to produce well structured images using a shifted lens.