Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1997

Sugimoto made a series of images of iconic examples of 20th century architecture. His deliberate soft focus eliminates all distracting detail and emphasises the essential forms. Each building is distilled to its crucial, signature elements that ensure instant recognition. He has managed effectively to evoke the spirit of these buildings, as one might perceive them in a dream, as concepts, rather than reminding the viewer of their physical mass. His approach bears some relation to traditional architectural photography but is better understood as a modern expression of the poetics of pictorialism.