Only in “mónos” do huts and palaces come so close to meaning the same thing. Vincenzo Pagliuca’s book is an architectural B-movie set in the southern Apennines of Italy. The solitary buildings he photographed are simple houses, composed of elementary geometric shapes. Yet some of the rudimentary dwellings look like pastel, miniature pastiches of historical or even avant-garde buildings. They seem to be out of place, formed from architectural elements that often don’t quite fit together. Always photographed from a central perspective and under an overcast sky, they become sculptures of the common man and make us think about how and why people build, live, and think.

Vincenzo Pagliuca (*1980) studied economics before turning to photography as an autodidact, eventually attending the master class of Antonio Biasiucci‘s “laboratorio irregolare”. His long-term projects focus primarily on the rural and suburban regions of his native country. Pagliuca‘s work has been exhibited and published internationally. “mónos” is his second book. He lives and works in Brescia.