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Autrefois, Maison Privee | 
 enlarge | Authors: Bernard Fall, Prince Sirik Matak
Creator: Bill Burke
Publisher: powerHouse Books
Category: Book
List Price: $75.00
Buy New: $15.00
You Save: $60.00 (80%)
New (16) Used (19) Collectible (2) from $7.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 888283
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 184
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.3
Dimensions (in): 13.7 x 10.6 x 1.1
ISBN: 1576871800
Dewey Decimal Number: 779.99596
EAN: 9781576871805
ASIN: 1576871800
Publication Date: June 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Brand new!
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Product Description
Photographer Bill Burke has taken annual trips to Indochina ever since he first traveled to Asia in 1982. Although he usually photographed the people, Burke became aware of how the architecture absorbed as much as reflected the region's history. Transfixed by buildings like the municipal offices built by the French in the 1860s, the vaulted railroad stations and post offices of the 1930s, and the art-deco fantasy cinemas of the 1960s, Burke saw the region as an architectural museum, rotting in the humidity and untouched by economic ambition, and began to trace the cultural changes in the area through its architecture. In Autrefois, Maison Privee - the title means "once a private house," and refers to prevalent reappropriation of once private houses for municipal and government uses - Burke captures the dramatic history of the area, from the influence of French colonialism through the rise of communism and the devastating effects of the Vietnam War, to the repopulation of Cambodia after the fall of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rough and the opening of the area to capitalism. Burke's first entree into Indochina occurred during the period of Soviet control, a period of recovery that allowed for the the current explosion of capitalism, which has already begun to devaste an architectural heritage that was well preserved in the deep freez of socialism. What the B-52s and tank didn't destroy during the decades of war, developers from neighboring countries are busily replacing
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| Customer Reviews:
Some Outstanding Photography. February 10, 2008
I have had only limited contact with B.H. Burkes's photography, but I must say that I am terribly impressed with this work. The images not only have interesting content, but they literally glow. I also found the inclusion of hand written descriptions quite helpful and gives this book a mixed media-like look. When you factor in the huge changes that this region is undergoing and the fact that I suspect that much of what is pictured in this book is either gone or horribly transformed (the Lux Parfumerie series is a good example of this transformation for the worse in my humble opinion), then this book's content becomes downright invaluable.
The Best Photo Book I've seen in years! August 3, 2004
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Wow! A photographer friend called me up from New York City on a Saturday night to tell me about this book. He said it was so good it made him "want to be a photographer again." After he rang off I went on-line and ordered a copy from Amazon. A week later I got it and my spirit was renewed, too.
There's no mistaking this for anything but a Bill Burke book. The hand written captions on the photos, the unique design that serves to enhance the photos, not some designer's ego and the immediacy of the image that puts the reader right there when the photo was made, all of Burke's trademark elements are here. The stunning four color black and white reproductions were made from scans of the black and white enlargements Burke made from his black and white Polaroid negatives. The photos are reproduced in warm tones with creamy whites so that many of them resemble 19th Century albumen prints by Baldus or the Bonfils.
While no one but Burke could have made these photos, at times he seems to be channelling the spirits of Atget, Evans and Sander. The second photo in the book of the "man with pigs" took my breath away. If August Sander had left the Westerwald for Cambodia he might have made this photo of a farmer taking pigs to market on his bicycle in a basket that looks like something out of "How to Wrap Five Eggs". The pig farmer looks out at the photographer from under the brim of his hat with a stoicism that bespeaks his acceptence of a hard life in the hot sun of southeast Asia and his quiet pride in being chosen to have his portrait made (Burke often gives his subjects the orginal 3 x 4 inch Polaroid photo, keeping the negative to make larger prints when he returns home).
There are many other photographs in "Autrefois..." besides the portraits. The architectural photos often show clasic old buildings with a barnacle like covering of late 20th Century design elements and advertising, other bear the legend, "demolished" or are shown before and after style with a superficial changes like a coat of modern window walls. The "Hanoi Hilton" is shown in 1995 unchanged since its days as a POW camp and in 1998 with the modern Singapore Hotel rising inside the former prison walls.
I would recommend this book to lovers of fine photography, Viet Nam vets, architecture buffs and any library in a community with a southeast Asian population.
The book itself is a pleasure to hold, large, beautifully printed on heavy stock, sturdilly bound, even the panoramas aren't lost in the gutters between the pages. And it's a bargain at twice the price! Buy it today before it sells out.
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