Case Study Homes

An ironic take on the Case Study House Program--initiated in 1945 by "Arts and Architecture" magazine in an effort to develop low-priced single-family homes by architects such as Richard Neutra and Charles and Ray Eames--German photographer Peter Bialobrzeski's "Case Study Homes" was shot at the Baseco compound, a squatter camp near the Port of Manila, which is home to an estimated 70,000 people. As Bialobrzeski was considering the series--startling images of provisional structures fashioned from slats, cardboard, corrugated metal and other cast-off materials and refuse--Lehman Brothers Bank collapsed and the media declared a global economic crisis. These recent events lend resonance to Bialobrzeski's images, which recall the photographs of impoverished rural Americans commissioned by the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s. Conceived as a sketchbook for a larger project, the images evidence the human will to survive and a profound resourcefulness.