Tract House #16 1971

Lewis Baltz made this photograph, Tract House #16, using black and white film and a camera of course, to capture the banal architecture of suburban homes. The photo focuses on the texture and surface of the house: the rough, overlapping shingles of the roof, the smooth stucco of the walls, and the rigid pattern of the bricks in the chimney. The sliding glass door on the left side reflects the scene, creating a play of light and shadow, of interior and exterior. The glass becomes a surface, a material. The chimney, standing starkly between the door and a small window, acts almost as a vertical line break, dividing the composition into sections. Like the work of the New Topographics photographers, Baltz transforms the everyday into something worthy of contemplation. I think of Ed Ruscha’s photo books when I look at this, but Baltz really goes his own way. It is this kind of systematic seriality that can transform the ordinary into something quite extraordinary.