A handful of graphic illustrations from an architect in Spain made their rounds on the Internet recently, simultaneously awing and confusing Buffalo-area history buffs.
What many believed to be recently found colorized black and white photos of the long gone Larkin Administration Building were actually artistic renderings created by a huge fan of Frank Lloyd Wright. Updated — even more realistic — versions were published by the artist on Thursday.
We tracked down the artist, who only offered a first name — David — and asked him to shed some light on this project.
- All WNY News: Who are you and where are you from?
- David: My name is David, I’m an architect, I live and work in Spain.
- All WNY News: Where does the interest in past architecture come from?
- David: Two of my hobbies are history and architectural visualization so I decided to link them on the web that you know: hookedonthepast.com.
- All WNY News: What is the aim or your site?
- David: As you know, there is an industry called architectural visualization or ArchViz which deals with the future of architecture, but for some reason hardly anyone has dealt so far to investigate the past of the architecture using the powerful tools we have today. My project Hooked On The Past attempts to fill that void.
- All WNY News: Why – with all the potential topics in the world – did you decide to start with the Larkin Administrative Building?
- David: Frank Lloyd Wright is one of my heroes since I was a student of architecture and remains so today. And the Larkin administration building is a unique opportunity to recreate a key building in the history of architecture precisely because nobody had done before.
- All WNY News: Can you explain the rendering process in simple terms? How did you get them to look so much like photographs?
- David: First the building is modeled in AutoCAD, then textures, lights and cameras are added in 3dsMax and finally you are given the finishing touches in Photoshop. They look like photographs because there are many hours and a lot of hard work behind. Behind these images, in addition to the hours and hard work there is also a lot of passion, because I love it and because I am convinced that this work is important.
- All WNY News: Can we expect more in the future?
- David: My project Hooked On The Past is not dedicated exclusively to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, but simply because I love his architecture several of his projects will appear in my web.
For more from David, check HookedOnThePast.com.
