Crowned (2017)

An architecture of ever more elaborate facades and tech-enabled structure is keenly worn like jewellery by our cities. Once limited to a few leading world cities, spectacle architecture has jumped and accelerated all around the world as global capitalism has taken hold. In the last few decades the new cities of the Middle East and the remodelled cities of China have been scrambling for extravagant architecture to put themselves on the map. These buildings brashly represent the large systems that act on us - economy, politics, imagination and myth - and are therefore a constant fascination to me, a constant puzzle to grapple with and try to get a hold on. Through an intense play with colour, form and composition the photographs tease out the delirium, complexity and beauty of this high pitch urbanism.