Gallery – Liège Guillemins Station Project (2018-2023)

The collection of 21 images in this gallery were taken at the Guillemins railway station in Liège, Belgium over four days during two visits at different times of the year. The station was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava – it is a stunning example of his work and the citizens of Liège are justifiably proud of it. It was quite new and still very clean when I started the project.

I submitted this panel of prints for Fellowship assessment in the Royal Photographic Society Visual Art genre in 2023. The submission was unsuccessful, mainly because it was deemed not to be distinctive; there were some concerns about repetition between images 3 and 4 and the concept was considered to be a well-trodden path.

I had the idea for the panel in 2018 and at that time made a preliminary visit to Liege to shoot some images to see what would work for me. I took advice through the RPS one2one process and then made another longer visit to Liège. One of the main considerations in the panel layout was the linearity and flow between images both horizontally and vertically, which had a major influence on the choice of images, their placement and precise orientation.

One has to be pragmatic about these things. A Fellowship application is a long-term project and not something to be rushed, but to be taken step by step and enjoyed along the way. And it’s not supposed to be easy. In my case it was five years and a lot of enjoyment but with a price to pay for that. Even though the panel was unsuccessful it still gave me a lot of pleasure putting it together and I am very fond of the images and the way they work as a harmonious body of work.

STATEMENT OF INTENT; RPS Visual Art Genre

Abstraction from Architecture

Abstraction and minimalism always reveal intrinsic artistic qualities.

The station building in Liège is a vast and complex array of structural elements of white painted steel and bare concrete which combine in seemingly endless variations, often resembling a living organism. As a railway engineer I appreciate the building as a functional transportation hub. As a photographer I am intrigued by the aesthetics of the lines, curves and forms, and how these interplay with changing light to create varied patterns, shadows and shapes one on another.

This body of work draws on an abstract and minimalist approach to create geometric compositions that celebrate the visual artistry inherent in this functional structure, as an exploration of space, light and tone.

I present to you my personal perspective on this extraordinary building and how I see it as a photographer, rather than an engineer.