Beautiful City Empty City
Leonid Furmansky
Curated by Jack Murphy
September 15, 2023 - January 19, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, September 15, 5:30-7:30pm

Beautiful City—Empty City showcases the architectural photography by Leonid Furmansky shot in downtown Houston during the pandemic. Selected from a portfolio titled Oil Towers, these images depict the city we know so well as a mostly empty and evocative canvas for exploration. The isolation experienced due to COVID-19 is visible in the vacant, frozen quality of the images. Shot largely at night, these images see downtown in a new way. They invite speculation not only about the quality of Houston’s architecture, but also the systems and economies that both finance and maintain it.

There will be several lectures, walking tour, and a photography workshop for kids associated with the exhibition. Check the ArCH calendar for upcoming events. 

About -
Leonid Furmansky is a Texas-based photographer. He is driven to document structures that represent the way we live. Leonid’s work has been published in the New York Times, Divisare, Texas Architect, Dwell, and ArchDaily. Leonid spends his free time documenting rural and overcrowded cities and experimenting with film photography.

Jack Murphy is Executive Editor of The Architect’s Newspaper. Previously he was Editor of Cite: The Architecture and Design Review of Houston and an adjunct professor at the University of Houston. His writing has appeared in Architectural Record, Dwell, The Architect’s Newspaper, Texas Architect, Places, Cite, PLAT, Paprika!, the SF Gate, the Houston Chronicle, and the New York Review of Architecture, among other publications. He received an Honorable Mention for the Pierre Vago Journalism Award 2020 from the International Committee of Architecture Critics. He earned degrees in architecture from MIT and Rice University and contributed to award-winning architectural practices in Texas, New York, and Massachusetts.