“Façades” is the title of a series of photographs taken by French photographer and artist Zachary Gaudrillot-Roy that visualize a world where urban buildings consist only of their facade.
The depth of each structure is eliminated with the use of photograph manipulation software, leaving just the front surface of the building standing. The urban photography series “Façades” currently features three parts, two with day-time photography and one captured at night. The theme remains the same: typical urban environments of modern France.
This billboard-like logic actually makes a strong point about the strong visual impact the two dimensional front facade of a building has on the pedestrians. Zachary Gaudrillot-Roy took photographs of typical industrial city blocks and then stripped the buildings from their depth keeping just the facade and the perspective of the surroundings. The result is astonishing!
With this work Zachary Gaudrillot-Roy manages to exaggerate the importance of facades as powerful visual elements to the perception of our surroundings. Indeed, in his surreal urban photography series the symbolic aspect of the façade proves itself. The viewer can easily captivate the corresponding feeling to each of the urban environments presented, as well as imagine the actual dimensions of the structures. We can tell that even if we feel that something is missing from this flat scenography, we can still “see” and mentally complete the missing parts. The facades of buildings are telltales of what lies beneath!
