Werner Mantz (1901 – 1983) has a worldwide reputation as one of the great architectural photographers of the modernist Neues Bauen architecture ofthe 1920s. His portrait photography, specializing particularly in pictures of children, is less well-known. Architectures and People is the first exhibition ever to present his architectural images side by side with his portrait photographs. The exhibition curators have adopted an unusual perspective on Mantz’s work: not from the point of view of chronology, but from that of form. This approach reveals Mantz’s photographic eye on his subjects.

The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Nederlands Fotomuseum and Museum Ludwig in Cologne. Both museums preserve important parts of Mantz’s archive. Architectures and People is curated by Frits Gierstberg (Nederlands Fotomuseum) and Miriam Halwani (Museum Ludwig). The two museums have joined hands with the Werner Mantz Foundation to publish an accompanying volume that, like the exhibition, features a typological arrangement of the photographs.