Before and After: Documenting the Architecture of Disaster

“The current ubiquity of ‘before-and-after’ images shapes our perception of the world. This undoubtedly opens up a new dimension by shifting our interest from the representation of the perpetrator to the representation of landscapes and architecture, thus transforming spatial analysis into an essential political tool. However, the most critical aspect of before-and-after images is the gap between them; these gaps resist simple interpretations.”

Eyal Weizman, as the founding director of the interdisciplinary research collective Forensic Architecture, and Ines Weizman, as the founding director of the Centre for Documentary Architecture, have been behind globally acclaimed works and projects in recent years. Their theoretical and practical work on the deployment and effective, creative use of spatial analysis and architectural expression tools in forensic and political events can be said to have pioneered the field of spatial data evaluation.

In this book, the Weizmans focus on before-and-after images, which serve as both a means of representation and material for analysis. Through striking examples, they examine the history of before-and-after images, particularly highlighting the new perspective satellite technologies have brought to this form of representation, while also tracing the political facets embodied in these images and representation technologies.