The facades of well-known buildings in Paris, New York and Brisbane have been reduced to patterned surfaces and silhouettes in this series of images by French photographer Alexander Jacques (+ slideshow).
Jacques' Architectural Pattern series captures the exteriors of buildings without any surrounding context, transforming them into abstract surfaces that the author says can offer new perspectives on what many perceive as ordinary.
"We spend all day walking past these buildings without raising our heads to glance at them," explained Jacques. "They are part of our daily lives, but we do not pay attention to them or we just think they're plain ugly."
The collection of 25 images is documented on Jacques's website and includes buildings by celebrated architects and firms such as Renzo Piano, SOM, Johann Otto von Spreckelsen and Kisho Kurokawa.
The photographer came up with the idea during a visit to New York, after taking a picture of a brick building in Soho. "When I returned to NYC for the second time, at the end of my studies, I had a higher sensitivity to graphics."
"I was more interested in the buildings than the rest of New York folklore. I saw lines and patterns everywhere. It was amazing. I spent whole days looking to the sky," he explained.
Other images from this city include a close-up of the Mc-Graw Hill Building at the Rockefeller Centre, which looks more like a piece of woven fabric than an office building.
"Sometimes I am surprised how a facade that I see with my eyes can make a picture. First we forget that it is a building, then the lines and perspective transform everything. In the end we only see the pattern," said Jacques.
In Paris, Johann Otto von Spreckelsen's Grande Arche becomes a series of gold and blue diamond-shaped boxes, while the pod-like rooms of the Tour Novotel are transformed into a series of neatly arranged poppies, broken up by lines of silver.
The gentle flowing lines of Jean-Paul Viguier's Coeur Defense, Europe's biggest building by floor space, are shown as squares and rectangles changing from shades of royal and sky blue, to white and teal.
Jacques hopes to continue the series by visiting more cities, including Hong Kong, Shanghai and Dubai. Prints of the photographs are available to buy via the website.
