Parisians Get a Taste of 'Americaland'

At the initiative of the Department of Architecture and Heritage of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, an exhibition of photos by the American landscape by photographer Alex MacLean has been organized by the BETC Euro RSCG advertising agency.

The exhibition is called "Americaland" and runs March 13 through April 27, 2003. The images are excerpted from his book Designs on the Land and are on exhibit at the Passage du Désir, 85-87 rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin in Paris.

Click here to visit the exhibit online

MacLean, co-author of the recent APA Planners Press book Above and Beyond and a frequent contributor to Planning magazine, has been systematically exploring American panoramas from aboard his Cessna 182 for the last 25 years.

Trained as an architect, he has brought a tradition up to date, building up a body of work recording the gradual evolution and sudden changes brought about by human intervention. MacLean casts an eye on the marks and manifestations of American urban society. From deserts to the scattered housing that sprawls across much of the U.S. today, he shows a territory in perpetual motion. He examines the traces of things that have disappeared or been transformed, and the renewal and rebirth that simultaneously occurs.

One aim of "Americaland" is to stimulate thinking on the social and ecological effects of how we build our societies and communities. In addition to the high quality of these photographs, this exhibition helps shine a spotlight on the global tentacles of American-style urbanization and serves as a vehicle to make French people aware of the stakes involved in planning issues

Seeing how humans change the land

Visitors to the exhibit are active participants in constructing a perception of the positive and negative impact of the activities of human beings as they farm their land, produce energy, mine the earth, lay out cities, recycle waste, and continually eat away at the countryside.

The photographs are identified by location and time and showed in a logical succession as if they were notes in a log of MacLean's travels. Through the settings and special effects visitors will feel like they are seeing MacLean's vision from on high themselves, sharing the sensations of altitude, distance and verticality that the photographer infused into these photos.

The core of the show is photo projections, but "Americaland" also includes a gallery of 25 photographs; a 52-minute film, Flying Solo; music; and a library of books on landscapes and the city.

About MacLean

Alex MacLean began his career as an aerial photographer with his thesis for the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1971.

After obtaining a master's degree in architecture in 1973, he decided to devote himself to aerial photography. In Boston in 1975 he founded Landslides Inc., an agency that furnishes photographic documentation to architects, engineers, planners, and environmental organizations.

He also does commission work for public and private city planners. Over the last 25 years he has flown over all of the lower 48 U.S. states. His publications include Look at the Land, Aerial Reflections on America (Rizzoli, 1993); Taking Measures Across the American Landscape, in collaboration with James Corner (Yale University Press, 1996); and Above and Beyond (APA Planners Press, 2002).