Michael Wolf’s recent book The Transparent City is a fascinating book about Chicago. He builds on his previous work in Hong Kong in that he depicts the city abstractly, focusing less on individual well-known structures and more on the contradictions and conflicts between architectural styles when visually flattened together in a photograph.

Michael Wolf, Transparent City #7, from The Transparent City, Chromogenic Print, 2007

It is interesting because Chicago is known for work by innovative architects such as David Adler, Daniel Burnham, Louis H. Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright, and after World War II, it established itself as a world capital of modern architecture influenced by the international style of Mies van der Rohe and home to notable projects by Helmut Jahn, Philip Johnson, and more recently Frank Gehry.

According to this review of The Transparent City in Lens Culture:

Wolf positions himself on rooftops or in the windows of opposing buildings to get the most amazing vantage points for each scene. He waits for perfect light at the time of day when twilight and interior light render the building walls nearly invisible. An incredible large format camera with a 112-megapixel digital back captures and reveals exquisite details.

Wolf spent a year as artist-in-residence for U.S. Equities Realty, a Chicago-based commercial real estate firm. The company helped him gain access to a number of local rooftops. He shot at dusk, when interior lights begin to merge with exterior lights amidst the overlapping building surfaces.

Wolf also digitally enlarged the detail images of the buildings, creating pixelated portraits of the inhabitants inside these buildings.