Bernd & Hilla Becher

Bernd and Hilla Becher turned industrial structures into one of the central subjects of postwar conceptual photography^*1. By photographing water towers, furnaces, gas tanks, and winding towers under strict conditions of frontal view, overcast light, and consistent scale, they developed the typological grid as a visual method^*2. Their work shifted attention from the individuality of a single building to the differences within a class of forms, which is why it was often understood as a kind of anonymous sculpture. As teachers in Dusseldorf, they shaped a generation that included Gursky, Struth, Ruff, and Hofer^*3. The Bechers remain crucial both as artists and as preservers of industrial memory^*4.