Photographer Bas Princen is as well known for his landscape and architectural photography as he is for his collaborations with the firms Office KGDVS and Studio Anne Holtrop. Last summer, he presented a different kind of work at the Vitra Design Museum Gallery: a conceptual piece on reference, or how one image evokes another. This led to large-format photographs of details from enlarged images, showing various materials. A+ speaks with the photographer ahead of his lecture at Bozar on 22 November, where he will present new work.

Bas Princen only became a photographer after completing various courses, all of which, in their own way, had something to do with the concept of ‘space’. First, he studied industrial design at the Eindhoven Academy, where he worked on public spaces. It was there that Princen began to use photography as a design tool. He employed the framing of his images to manipulate the viewer’s perception of space, without altering reality. During his two-year course at the Berlage Institute, he then applied photography to architecture. His training enabled him to “contribute something to the world of architecture without being an architect”.