By the roadside # 1310 - Munich (MIRA Shopping Mall)

The series “By The Roadside”with its various parts is Michael Nguyen's most important field of work. Photosgraphs from Germany and neighboring countries

If we walk with our eyes open, we can see interesting, beautiful, and also ugly things along the road every day. And if we walk with not only with our eyes but also with our heart and mind open, you will discover a world that would otherwise remain closed to us. Sometimes spectacular. Sometimes ordinary but surprisingly miraculous. Michael Nguyen accompanies us on little journeys through places in Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, and elsewhere, to discover what the random walk leads us to.

“By the Roadside" consists several parts which are shown in the Portfolio section on Nguyen’s Website in the menufolder Photography.

This image is from the part: “ Facades Architecture. Fascination of the Faces of Buildings”

In architecture, the term facade refers to the outwardly visible wall surfaces of a building, including windows, doors and the likes. Materials are often concrete, glass, wood, brick or masonry made of sand-lime bricks. But for Michael Nguyen, they are not just that inanimate materials or elements. They are like the face of a human, like the shape of body, or the clothes, which communicate with the other humans and tell stories.

That’s why in most of his photographs, Nguyen does not show an overall view of a building, but a look at the details and particularities. Just like when we approach a person and have a chance to look closer, we see their beautiful eyes, we hear their unique voice from those open lips, or sometimes just an interesting pattern of the dress they wear attracts us.

With these settings in mind, look at the photos of Nguyen. Buildings are not static objects with five facades, four side walls and the roof. They are lively, dynamic sculptures. The windows are their eyes, that reveal a part of their soul. The open doors are talking with us, inviting us to come in, to hear their inner stories. And the graphic layout of bricks, of glass, of wood or whatever the genuine architects create are their eye-catching clothes, which make our cities, our urban spaces more beautiful, more vibrant.

The photography shows the MIRA Shopping Center opened in 2008 in the Munich district Nordhaide. The West, North, and northern half of the Eastern facades, was made of colored lacquered metal panels which were placed on the walls to form prisms. Since the sides of the prisms have different colors, the façade appears from the southwest and northwest in different colors. In between, a gradual transition takes place, so that the building changes dynamically as one passes by. In addition to the colored panels, the façade also contains panels made of polished aluminum, which reflect the sky and surrounding buildings. The façade construction was awarded with the “DGNB Gold Award for sustainable buildings" in 2009. The shopping centre was planned by Chapman Taylor. The responsible project architect there was Ruprecht Melder. Léon-Wohlhage-Wernik Architekten was responsible for the façade design.