Begun in 1974, it comprises more than 50,000 items dating from 1839 to today.
Photographs are significant aspects of architectural culture.
Those that make up the collection permit an exploration of the complexity of the photographic representation of architecture and its intentions and uses in differing contexts, and may be studied as historical documents in themselves or for their relation to and influence upon architecture. The collection includes isolated images and groups of images that can be compared with other historical documents such as drawings, prints, and texts. In its presentation of these complex forms of relation, the collection is particularly well endowed in works from the nineteenth century in the early decades of the medium, which are periods of major concentration. Significant works from later periods are also represented, as more fully described below.