The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2024
Iwan Baan photographs Rome and Las Vegas as mirror cities, not opposites
Iwan Baan shoots Rome and Las Vegas from sky to ground so the 'eternal' and the 'fake' city turn out to mirror each other.
Iwan Baan
What it had to solve
Rome is perceived as ancient, proper and eternal, while Las Vegas is described as flashy, vulgar and fake — two cities commonly placed at opposite ends of what architecture represents. The project asks whether that bipolar distinction survives when the two are photographed as a pair.
How it works
Rome and Las Vegas are commonly placed at opposite ends of what architecture represents: the former capital of the Roman Empire is perceived as ancient, proper and eternal, while Sin City is described as flashy, vulgar and fake.
Iwan Baan's photographs capture the atmosphere of both cities from the sky to the ground. Seen together, they reveal unexpected similarities and rediscover Las Vegas's extravagance on the streets of Rome.
The pairing contrasts and subverts common perceptions of authenticity and artificiality, ultimately questioning the bipolar distinction itself. The resulting book project sits in the D&AD awards archive under Book Design; the archive records no sales or audience figures.
Why it lands
- Shooting both cities from sky to ground gives the comparison one shared measure instead of cherry-picked views.
- Side-by-side images let the viewer discover the similarity for themselves, which subverts the cliché more effectively than an argument would.
- Framing the pair as authenticity versus artifice turns the book into a question about how places get labelled.
What it did
The paired study makes each city reinterpret the other: the 'real' city turns out to carry Las Vegas's extravagance, and the 'fake' city is seen through the same visual language. The book project sits in the D&AD awards archive under Book Design; the archive records no sales figures.
What you can take
To break a cliché, don't argue with it — shoot both sides of the pair through the same lens and let the images subvert it.
Since then
The Rome – Las Vegas project is preserved in the D&AD awards archive under Book Design, with Iwan Baan credited as client. The archive page records no sales or circulation figures, so the case stands on the visual argument itself: two cities normally defined as opposites, shot with the same eye until each begins to look like the other.
Sources
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