See Wolfgang Tillmans's Architectural Photography at the Met

Apartment complexes dotted with satellite dishes. A dilapidated building with boarded-up windows. The contemporary London skyline. For Wolfgang Tillmans’s project Book for Architects , opening today at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the German photographer traveled to 37 countries on five continents, shooting architectural features—the ordinary and the extraordinary—with what he has called a “warm eye.” The images, which ranged from recognizable landmarks such as Manhattan’s Flatiron Building to mundane street signage or a bundle of electric wiring fixed to a ceiling, were edited down to 450 photographs that are shown through a two-channel video installation projected onto perpendicular walls.

Through the cycling shots of exteriors, interiors, skylines, and street views, Tillmans paints a portrait of modern-day architecture, showing the stylistic synchronicity in our globalized world. In viewing the wide range of structures, both the architect and the everyday museumgoer can observe the way in which hundreds of isolated projects merge to create an overall design, be it a room, a building, a city, or the entire planet.

Through July 5 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York; metmuseumrg