FRAMES Photography Podcast with Robin Hill

In today’s episode, W. Scott Olsen talks to Robin Hill, a Miami and New York-based photographer who straddles the boundaries between architecture, design, and fine art.

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Born and raised in Nottingham, England, Hill began his career in 1987 in the most inauspicious way by taking pictures of toddlers in supermarkets and department stores across London. He didn’t know at that stage that one day his photographs would be exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and Bilbao or grace the pages of the world’s leading design publications such as Vanity Fair, Wallpaper, and Architectural Digest. Architecture is the cornerstone of his work; perspectives colliding and geometries intersecting, light playing with shadow and whimsy dancing with rigor, a philosophy of action that has led him to work with many of the world’s leading architects, including Herzog and de Meuron, Zaha Hadid and Arquitectonica.

Hill likes to see his work as a metaphorical tripod with the three legs of his photography: architecture, design, and fine art, all coming together within the camera that sits atop the tripod. Hill first became known in the world of architecture through a project known as MiMo (MIami MOdern), which is a movement to preserve post-war modern architecture in Miami and resulted in the seminal exhibition ‘Beyond the Box,’ which debuted at the Municipal Art Society in New York City and resulted in the publication of MiMo: Miami Moden Revealed. (Chronicle Books 2004) The first of more than twenty books that Hill has collaborated on. Hill became involved with other media, hosting the EMMY award-winning ART 360 on PBS and delivering keynote lectures at the Sarasota Design Conference and the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami. Hill received the AIA award for Florida in 2015 as the Architectural Photographer of the Year.

Robin Hill and Margi Glavovic Nothard, co-founder and design director at Glavovic Studio, have been strategic partners for decades, working together on socially impactful projects in the art, architecture, and urban design spaces. And they continue to work together to this day, with Hill serving as the go-to photographer for all Glavovic projects. The two are especially active in South Florida, whether it’s a public art installation or an affordable housing project that needs to be photographed.