New York’s architecture laid bare: City landmarks misplaced in desert skylines

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A new photo series strips New York's architecture to its bare bones

It 'misplaces' the city's famous buildings against desolate abandoned landscapes

CNN  — 

The New Yorkers won’t be happy. The city’s most famous buildings – the Chrysler, the Guggenheim Museum – have been uprooted to some of the world’s most deserted landscapes.

Luckily, it’s all just a photo manipulation trick, rather than an actual raid of New York’s architecture.

American designer Anton Repponen began the project last September. He wanted to remove the iconic buildings from the buzz of New York, so they could be fully appreciated.

“Sometimes incredible buildings get lost in all the noise. They disappear behind the cars on the street or the branded coffee shops around the corner. I wanted to showcase them as the architect had intended.”

To complete the 11-image series, Repponen spent hours photographing the same building.

“In each image, the shot of the building is actually composed of several different shots. For example, with the Breuer Building, the left corner is an image that I took one day, the right corner is from a shot taken on another day. I compile these different images together and draw over them to clean them up the shadows and lines.”

He places the finished images against bare landscapes, such as deserts and volcanoes, using images from his travels to places such as Peru, Brazil and Hawaii.