Ciphers

Photographer Christoph Gielen's views of urban development offer a look at America's most aberrant and unusual sprawl forms in ways we usually don't get to see them—from far above the ground. This book turns sprawl into an aesthetic experience at the intersection of art and environmental politics, questioning the ramifications of contemporary building trends. The pictures invoke an era of carefree risk-taking, of bigger is better, when investing in home-ownership and commercial real estate were still standard practices and neither distance from work place nor gasoline prices much mattered in determining the locations of new constructions. The startling extent of those practices comes to light in this book —as if looking at a non-sustainable lifestyle through a giant magnifier. Kaleidoscopic and abstract, Gielen’s photographs are also detailed enough to function as a diagnostic tool for assessing the conditions on the ground.