You often hear about decisions being made in the seat of power. In reality, it's more like seats.
"Corridors of Power," a series of photographs by Swiss photographer Luca Zanier, is a striking look at important places entirely devoid of the important people who usually inhabit them. The tour takes us through board rooms, assembly halls, parliaments, and more than one room in the United Nations. These are the cavernous spaces where history is shaped.
The series began several years ago when Zanier visited the French Communist Party headquarters, in Paris, designed by modernist master Oscar Niemeyer. The room Zanier chose to shoot, with its strangely textured mauve walls, makes it feel a little bit like you're a cellular-sized version of yourself trapped inside a human organ. The UN Security Council room in New York is as colorful as a pack of Starburst, while the FIFA executive boardroom, in Zurich, is pretty much exactly the War Room from Dr. Strangelove, for whatever that's worth.
>The room Zanier shot made it feel a little bit like you're a cellular-sized version of yourself.
Each interior has its own unique character, but there's clearly a shared language among them. It's hard not to notice the startling symmetry, the simple geometries rendered at imposing scale.
Though some of these spaces are open to the public, Zanier couldn't exactly show up and snap pictures. He typically requires a full day to complete a shoot. "I need to change light, arrange seats and climb to the most impossible angles," he says.
Unsurprisingly, to photograph corridors of power you need to first penetrate labyrinths of bureaucracy. On one occasion, Zanier received permission to shoot a space only to show up and be turned away. At another venue, he was rebuffed repeatedly over the course of four years. On a whim, he tried emailing someone else at the office, and was welcomed straight away.
Of course, not every important setting looks the part. Zanier visited the World Trade Organization, in Switzerland, in hopes of adding it to the series. When he got there he took a look around, found the space thoroughly average, and left without unpacking his camera bag.
Prints of Zanier's photographs can be found at the Anzenberger Gallery site. His most recent publication, Power Book, collects equally compelling photographs of power plants and other energy systems.
