With its emphasis on all things visual, Tumblr has emerged as one of the most engaging platforms for observing architecture, ranging from the historic to the surreal. The upload-based social network is a haven for image-hoarders everywhere, with each Tumblr carefully curated to indulge a very specific craving, be it endangered Brutalism or decadent interior design.
For architectural history fetishists, Tumblr has proven an unending boon. It hosts thousands of images with historical documentation and takes the role that a library or archive might have 50 years ago. Other feed-based networks fulfill other needs of the architectural community, (forum, event calendar, yearbook, etc.), but Tumblr peddles in images.
That’s also one of its drawbacks. Tumblr’s format can reduce entire historical movements to a series of images, divorced from their political, social and architectural contexts and ethos. The internet does this on its own to some extent, but the often purposely obscure format of Tumblr sometimes completely erases a photo’s traceability, so it exists as only a singular image.
Still, this quality does give Tumblr so much of its cultural potential. By networking images and circulating them alongside a constant stream of non-architectural photography and drawings, it creates unimaginable combinations and lets people construct their own personal identities using architecture.
While it is possible to simply search #architecture and find great collections and pictures, we have compiled a list of our favorite Tumblrs for your browsing enjoyment. Click through them and follow us down the rabbit hole.
Greek architect Andreas Angelidakis finds some of the most fantastic imagery from all over architectural history and the internet. Much of the work lies in the intersection between the two.
Architect and collector Andrew Kovacs simply piles up things he likes into this tumblr, which has amassed what must be the world’s largest database of images that did not previously exist on the internet.
SUBTĪLITĀS (latin; noun f., 3rd): fineness of texture, logic, detail; slenderness, exactness, acuteness; sharpness; precision. A collection of refined architecture run by a Los Angeles-based architectural designer.
Architect and photographer Andy Matthews from Peckham, England, fills this Tumblr with images that he finds in his research or on design sites. It is a high-quality batch of fairly straightforward building documentation.
One of the most mysterious sites here, Pink Frequency posts a range of images from art, fashion and architecture. A lot of it is of the pastiche variety, or the garish.
Fabricio Mora’s Tumblr has some very nice models and drawings that set it apart from the rest. It is also collects quite a range of buildings and projects.
Alexandra Lange somehow finds herself in all of the best American mid-century modernism and documents her first-hand accounts here.
This Tumblr from Spain is a collection of the research Ethel Baraona comes across in her daily workings, including the publishing collective DPR-Barcelona. It has a political/utopian slant, but the images are still very tasty.
Ross Wolfe has a similarly theoretical and political vision for his Tumblr and even allows people to submit their own findings.
A classic, this one features shots of people looking lonely in modernism. It is sourced from magazines like Dwell and has spawned a book.
“Home is where you park it,” is the motto of this mobile-architecture collection. Users can submit photos from their own adventures using #VanLife.
“Inspiration for your quiet place somewhere.” A selection of cabins. Brilliantly executed by the residents of Beaver Brook
One of what seems to be an inordinate number of Brutalism blogs, this one is very focused on Britain and its new towns and council estates.
Probably the most popular Brutalism-themed Tumblr, this is curated by Michael Abrahamson, who also guest edited an issue of CLOG.
The brain-child of a Dutch architectural historian, this site is named for a Swedish documentary of the same name and features “bleak/gloomy/forbidding/desolate/unfortunate and totalitarian architecture.”
The theme of this site is “architecture that looks like art / art that looks like architecture,” a quite broad category, but it somehow maintains a cohesive aesthetic/ethos. A lot of cool modernism and gallery art that takes on architectural qualities, among other things, too.
Glasgow-based “wmud,” a self-described urbanist, photographer and nuisance, collects his inspirations here, all in black-and-white.
“You must destroy to build” is the motto of this “next level archive”, which is a melange of eclectic high design and bizarre utilitarian architecture.
What are your favorite architecture Tumblrs? Explore Architizer’s redesigned Tumblr here and for more enticing architecture on social media, read The Architects You Need To Follow On Instagram Now!