Iwan Baan will probably never become a household name outside of the architecture profession, but he might just be playing an instrumental role in getting a few architects a good bit closer to that status. You see, though he describes himself as just a photographer, it has been his focus on architecture over the past 10 years in his own distinctly real life-oriented manner which has made him the most sought after architecture photographer in the world. So when the chance to lend him a hand in photographing a small, very unusual home in Mill Valley, I couldn’t pass it up.
I really only barely knew his name. I had no clue where he was from or his background, only the frequency which I encountered it in architecture books and magazines from around the world. The name always sounded exotic, in my mind an imaginary colleague of Pico Ayer. What I knew very well, however were the names of his clients - the world’s A-list of starchitects from Europe and Asia: OMA, SANAA, Zaha Hadid and even the new headliners like Pritzker prize winner Chinese architect Wan Shu and Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. My introduction to Iwan came from a friend, architect Koji Tsutsui, who has joined that long line like so many others, not by asking but by being asked. Iwan told me he turns down 90% of the inquiries he receives. In this position, he can choose the projects and people that interest him.
Iwan first encountered Koji when he photographed some AIDS-health clinics in Africa that resulted from an open international competition. Koji had been one of the winning designers. Iwan contacted Koji to see if he had other projects. As it happened, Koji was just finishing a home in the Japanese mountain resort of Karuizawa. Soon, while Iwan was in Japan working on some other new buildings, he visited the new house.
Iwan has a keen eye for recognizing work that has a major impact on the current ideas of contemporary architecture. A few weeks later when he was in New York meeting with the editors at Architectural Record, they asked if he had other works to share. When he showed them the results of his session in Karuizawa, what they saw was a moody, almost sentimental portrait of a small house in the woods that so impressed them that they would ultimately put it on the cover of the magazine’s Record Houses edition. Iwan continues to be a be fan of Koji’s work and asked him to let him know if he creates any new buildings. So, when Koji had nearly finished his own house in Mill Valley, an idiosyncratic composition of a gray boxes, clustered together twisting as they descend down the steeply sloped, heavily wooded site, he wrote Iwan and soon they were planning for his visit.
Shooting was delayed by a day when an airport workers’ strike in Rome delayed Iwan’s departure forcing him to miss his connection in Paris. That didn’t seem to be a problem because Iwan went right to work as soon as he arrived from the airport in the afternoon. Iwan’s departure date wasn’t going to change and the sun continued its determined track across the sky towards evening, so the schedule would become very compressed and every minute would count.
Baan in pursuit of his signature aerial shot.
He got out of the car from the airport looking almost like Russell Brand - tall, scruffy beard and collar-length hair, leather jacket, jeans and biker boots, just like his near rockstar reputation might suggest, but he also possessed an appealingly calm charm about him- very pleasant, unrushed and modest. After very brief introductions, he pulled a camera from his duffle and began walking around the house and climbing through the surrounding trees looking for interesting views and taking shots from four or five locations. He chatted casually all the while he was moving about looking intensely at the house. Within an hour however, he was back in the car with Google Maps as his guide on his way to Hayward where he had hired a helicopter for one hour to allow him to photograph the building from above saying it was the only way to see the entire house and understand its composition.
The author and a friend enjoying the view over the Mill Valley House, by Koji Tsutsui. photo courtesy, Iwan Baan, 2012.
After waiting nearly an hour, we could faintly hear the sound of the helicopter approaching, scanning, searching for the house nestled nearly hidden amidst the dense trees. When he found us, he began a series of passes over the house that lasted maybe 10 minutes and, just as quickly as he appeared, he was gone. And again we waited. He finally made it back to the house through some typical Bay Area rush hour traffic by 6:30 with the sun setting fast. But again, without a moment’s delay, Iwan calmly sought out some positions on the west side that were still getting some shafts of direct light through the trees and resumed shooting. As the sun continued downward, the shafts of light disappearing, Iwan pulled out the tripod to use his exposure settings to squeeze a few more shots before the light was gone. He finally took the last shots of the day perched high up on a tall ladder with his tripod gingerly braced on the steps, the darkening blue sky reflecting off the pools of water on the roofs of each of the gray boxes as they twisted and descended down the hill.
With the sun now long gone and our appetites fully engaged we sat down with Iwan for some pizza and beers. Iwan is from Amsterdam and speaks English with that familiar Dutch accent with a soft, almost shy delivery. He confessed that he doesn’t know anything about architecture, but that he has been taking pictures his entire life since he first picked up a camera at 12. Perhaps it is his non-architect’s point of view that leads Iwan to see landscapes, buildings and public spaces as inhabited and indeterminate and not pure formal compositions. Publishers certainly appreciate his approach. He is so busy he only visits his Amsterdam flat 2 or 3 days a month. The rest of the time he is moving around the globe from one new major architectural work to another. The overwhelming sentiment that came through while he spoke of his head-spinning global travel schedule and his favorite architects was that of gratitude, a modest appreciation for being able to pursue his interest and make a living at the same time. We continued to talk about the personalities and challenges he faces until 10 or so when the jet lag seemed to finally catch up with him. We grudgingly let him go to bed. The first light was due at 6 the next morning and he wasn’t going to waste any of it. He was due to leave the next afternoon for New York and more appointments with the publishers. Driving home with my friend Laura, we could only marvel at his mellow personality, intense global schedule and the rare chance we’d been able to share with one of the great artistic talents working in the world.
The shy photographer. photo: author, 2013.