Architectural Photography That Breaks Your Brain On Second Glance

Filip Dujardin’s exquisitely crafted collages are so beautiful, it’s sad to learn they’re fakes. Filip Dujardin is to architectural photography what trolls are to the Internet. The Belgian photographer, who is the subject of a solo show next month in San Francisco, delights in making images that are just believable enough to confuse the eye. Dujardin calls his art--which is not quite photography and not quite illustration--“fictions.” Like a digital-age Dr. Frankenstein, the 41-year-old artist crafts his fictions from multiple photographs, cutting and pasting them into something that just passes for realism. One image shows a building made entirely out of chimneys, another structure has a massive wall of windows--each a different size and shape. His newest work, shot in the coastal French town of Deauville, splices unexpected materials like medieval cr...