UAE: Vital Structures by Tim Hetherington

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Normally I work on long-term projects that seek a degree of intimacy and involvement with the subject. But since I speak no Arabic, my trip around the United Arab Emirates forced me to employ an alternative strategy, and I started thinking of Walker Evans and his vernacular approach. The result took on the form of a photographic survey, examining the way that architecture can transform the harsh Arabian environment and harness important resources.

For all the perceived glamour of...
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Normally I work on long-term projects that seek a degree of intimacy and involvement with the subject. But since I speak no Arabic, my trip around the United Arab Emirates forced me to employ an alternative strategy, and I started thinking of Walker Evans and his vernacular approach. The result took on the form of a photographic survey, examining the way that architecture can transform the harsh Arabian environment and harness important resources.

For all the perceived glamour of the modern skyscrapers, I found myself strangely drawn to everyday structures - water towers, mosques, petrol stations, roundabouts - that verged on the banal and yet were rich in those details of daily life that go some way towards expressing a sense of indigenous national character.

Tim Hetherington took these pictures as part of the British Council project My Father's House: The Architecture of Cultural Heritage.
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