By Wim de Wit
Head of Special Collections
& Visual Resources
Curator of Architectural Drawings
The Getty Research Institute

Before Julius Shulman arrived on the scene, architectural photography provided exactly what the term implies: photographs of buildings. Such photographs might show single buildings, or groups of buildings, or buildings surrounded by natural landscape; human beings were generally not included. As is the case with many customs, this one was based on a very practical circumstance: in the early years after photography was invented in 1839, the exposure time required in order to capture all the architectural details of, let's say, a Neo-Gothic building on the photographic plate was very long.

People were unable to stand still for the entire interval. It was deemed better not to have any figure in the photo of a building or site than blurry figures. This practical prohibition eventually developed into a widely accepted rule: if one wanted to be taken seriously as an architectural photographer, one should keep people outside the frame of the camera.

Over the years, photos of buildings showing people in the foreground or inside a space had become associated with images for the popular press. This distinction between serious and popular architectural photography was already well established in 1893, at the time of the Worlds Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

The official photographer for that fair, C.D. Arnold, took most of his well-known images at times when no visitors were present, or he took his pictures from a distance far enough to render the people as small, dark blotches. If one wants to get an idea of those who visited the fair, one has to consult popular magazines, such as Harper's Bazaar, or look for photographs made by amateur photographers, many of whom used the hand-held Kodak camera that had been introduced just before the start of the fair. Those photos do show people.

This attitude towards architectural photography was largely unchanged in the 1930s or '40s when Shulman took up the camera. Modernist architects at that time considered space, massing, texture and color to be the primary tangible determinants for how a building functioned. Photographers were supposed to bring out these aspects rather than how people actually used the building.

Shulman's approach therefore turned out to be revolutionary. In a sense, he turned the modernist principle upside down. He was not interested in abstract images of wall details or empty rooms. Instead, he wanted to impress upon the viewer that modern architecture, in spite of its lack of ornament, was eminently livable.

Shulman humanized the houses designed by such California architects as Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler and Pierre Koenig by strategically placing people in the scenes he created. Shulman's images of the Mirman Residence by Buff, Straub and Hensman in Arcadia, for example, show people in conversation in the house's dining or sitting room areas. Here, as in almost all of Shulman's photos, there is a secondary group of people (the children) in the background. Such a mise-en-scène guarantees that the viewer's eye does not settle on that single living-room scene only; it also demonstrates that the house is really lived in, that it is a place where many different activities can take place at the same time.

Shulman's photograph of the Mutual Housing Association is different. While it does not show people in a house, it does make a link between a modern-looking house by Whitney R. Smith, A. Quincy Jones, and Edgardo Contini in Brentwood and a mother with a young child and a dog who seem to be going up to their house (the construction of which is almost finished) to take a look at it. Not only does the photo suggest that the young family is very happy with its house, it also shows the environment in which this family will be living once it has moved in-with views towards the ocean on one side and nature on the other.

Many of Shulman's photos make a point of showing to the viewer the advantages of living in Southern California, a region of warm and balmy days and cool nights. People living the modern life in California's new architecture can enjoy domesticity and nature at the same time, because, as the photo of the healthy children playing in and around the Skinner House shows, the border between inside and outside has almost disappeared.

Shulman's desire to present the California lifestyle sometimes ran counter to what the architect, who was most often his client, wanted. When Richard Neutra commissioned him to photograph the Maslon House in Palm Springs, for example, the architect asked Shulman to remove most of the furniture and art work from the rooms. Shulman took the photos according to his customer's wishes. Consequently, however, he did go back and take new photos showing the house the way the Maslons, who were important modern-art collectors, lived in it.

This incident provides exemplary testimony to Shulman's philosophy. For him, documenting a residence purely because of its structural and spatial qualities was generally not enough (unless it had great sculptural qualities, as did Herb Greene's "Prairie Chicken" House). People and their objects expose the soul of a building, and that is primarily what Shulman wanted to capture.