Photography of architecture has been central to the development of photography itself, yielding a wealth of images in a period of little more than 150 years. Photography and Architecture: 1839–1939, a historical survey of the first hundred years of architectural photography, presents 148 photographs selected from the CCA collection, arranged according to an understanding of the growth and development of photography.

Photography and Architecture demonstrates national differences in attitude toward medium and subject and the importance of photographs as a valuable source of knowledge about all architecture, both as documentation and representation. It also discusses the growth and development of the photography of architecture and suggests ways in which the image was affected by evolving photographic techniques important for both architectural historians and photographers. Yet the photographs shown here are more than a historical study. To the photographer, they present a hypothesis to be tested in investigating the possibilities of architectural photography and provide a framework for further discoveries and invention.

Essays by Phyllis Lambert and Richard Pare
Catalogue by Catherine Evans Inbusch and Marjorie Munsterberg
Graphic design by Eleanor Morris Caponigro
Published in 1982