UNSTUDIO
Booking.com Headquarters

Amsterdam
Netherlands



The  Booking Headquarters were my first official architecture photography contract. I spent a day with Nick Hufton from Hufton+Crow documenting the impressive UNStudio office building, while the entire staff of the architecture office visited the new spaces and even enacted use for us.
It was a lot of fun and confirmed my desire and ability to do this professionally.




MVRDV
Boijmans Art Depot

Rotterdam
Netherlands



When I returned to Rotterdam for the Photo Festival in 2022, I invited a number of my ex-coworkers from MVRDV to visit my exhibition, including the head of PR of the office, Jan Knikker, who had been a great supporter of my work from the beginning. I told him that I would visit the Art Depot on the following day, and would send him my pictures. In the end, these were the first photographs I sold to an architecture office. It meant a lot to me to be valued by MVRDV, not as an architect only but a photographer. I had a great time working there, and I hope to keep collaborating with the team in the future, not only because it’s an interesting architecture office, but because I appreciate the people.

This building is  a new typology of museum - giving access to the actual archive of the Boijmans, and allowing new insight into the work of an art conservator and the functioning of an art institution.




NARRATIVE ARCHITECTURE PHOTOGRAPHY
Telling stories

6 years+
Various countries



I spent the most part of the last decade photographing buildings throughout the world for my long-term project Territories. While this body of work was carried out in black and white, I also taught myself to document buildings in color at the same time. 
My architecture photography is focused on narration - I use the logic of the street photographer to document spaces. While description of the building is always mandatory, I aim for photographs which have a narrative quality. This approach is just as simplistic as it is holistic - it tells the story of the building through people, through the way it is used. This way, the viewer doesn’t only learn how the building looks, but also how it works, and what it feels like to experience it. My personal belief is that it shows more accurately the work that we actually produce as architects, which is incredibly complex, and goes far, oh so far beyond looks and stylistic gestures.
My architecture photography has received numerous awards in photography competitions, including the Sony World Photography Awards in 2019, and the Architizer One Photo Challenge in 2021.
All photographs produced by Philippe Sarfati, unless stated otherwise.
All architecture projects are the property of the respective firms for which Philippe Sarfati worked.

Website design by Philippe Sarfati with the guidance of ALT8.
Graphic Identity by ALT8.



All photographs produced by Philippe Sarfati, unless stated otherwise.
All architecture projects are the property of the respective firms for which Philippe Sarfati worked.

Website design by Philippe Sarfati with the guidance of ALT8.
Graphic Identity by ALT8.