Architecture surrounds us, but the right photograph can make even a familiar building feel completely new. The inaugural PERSPA Awards 2026, organized by the France-based Association PERSPA, celebrate photographers who use perspective, light, geometry, and atmosphere to reveal the built environment in striking ways. This first edition, titled “Architectural Perspective 2026,” brought together work spanning everything from historic spaces and sweeping cityscapes to abstract details and carefully composed interiors.

Taking the top honor as Photographer of the Year is Alessia Santambrogio with her seven-image series “A Historic Italian Theatre From the 1700s.” The series also won three individual categories—Cultural, Historic & Heritage, and Open Color. Architectural photography experts John Gollings, Glenn McArthur, and Paul Raftery judged the competition. Below, we’re showcasing a selection of the winning and honorable mention photographs recognized across this year’s awards.

Scroll down to explore a selection of the awarded images, and let us know in the comments which photograph made you stop and take a closer look.

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#1 “A Historic Italian Theatre From The 1700s” By Alessia Santambrogio

Photographer of the Year PERSPA 1st Place in the Cultural, Historic & Heritage, and Open Color Categories Honorable Mention in the Fine Art Category Description: “Rows of empty seats sit beneath tiers of ornate boxes inside an Italian theatre dating from the eighteenth century. Alessia Santambrogio’s central viewpoint brings the painted ceiling and the auditorium into a single view. Warm lighting reveals the repeated balconies without losing the room’s overall shape.”

PERSPA stands for Prix de la Perspective Architecturale. Based in Bourges, France, the association was established to support cultural activity and architectural photography while helping photographers reach a wider audience.

#2 “Beacon” By Derry Ainsworth

3rd Place in the Aerial Category Description: “The illuminated crown of Hong Kong’s International Finance Centre rises above a bank of low fog. With most of the surrounding city concealed, Derry Ainsworth isolates a single tower. Light catches the mist around its base, making the familiar skyscraper look unexpectedly remote.”

#3 “Colors In The Nasir Al-Mulk Mosque” By Emily M. Wilson

Honorable Mention in the Historic & Heritage Category Description: “Sunlight passes through the stained glass of the Nasir al-Mulk Mosque in Shiraz, Iran, laying patches of colour across columns and carpets. Emily M. Wilson’s photograph shows how the coloured light changes the interior, extending the patterns of the windows well beyond their frames.”

At the heart of the awards is an invitation to pay closer attention to the spaces people encounter every day. Architecture can be monumental or ordinary, centuries old or brand-new, but photography draws attention to details, patterns, proportions, and moods that might otherwise go unnoticed.

#4 “Suspended Time” By Stephane Navailles

2nd Place in the Human & Architecture Category Description: “A small figure stands within a sequence of enormous circular frames. Above, a curved glass roof admits daylight into the space. Stephane Navailles aligns the openings so that one seems to sit inside another, producing a picture in which the viewer keeps looking for the next layer.”

#5 “The Great Falcon. Zayed National Museum” By Francesca Pompei

3rd Place in the Cultural Category Description: “Inside the Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi, a single visitor stands beneath broad concentric rings in the ceiling. Francesca Pompei includes the low seating on either side to reinforce the room’s scale. The restrained palette makes the person’s dark outline the first point of reference.”

The inaugural competition featured 17 categories: Abstract, Aerial, Black and White, Cityscape, Cultural, Fine Art, France, Geometry, Historic & Heritage, Human & Architecture, Industrial, Minimalism, Modern Architecture, Night & Low Light, Open Color, Stairs, and Symmetry.

#6 “Cologne Cathedral” By Hans-Georg Esch

3rd Place in the Historic & Heritage Category Description: “Pinnacles, buttresses and carved stone crowd this view of Cologne Cathedral. Hans-Georg Esch brings the building’s upper structure close, rather than showing its familiar outline from the street. Warm light separates the layers of Gothic detail and draws the eye along the central axis.”

#7 “European Architecture” By Eric Chatelain

2nd Place in the Modern Architecture Category Description: “The Kuggen building in Gothenburg, Sweden, appears as a cluster of brightly colored facets. Eric Chatelain selected it for a series made during travels across Europe. A close view of its curved exterior lets red, orange and green panels dominate, with only a little sky left around them.”

Together, they leave plenty of room for different approaches to architectural photography. Some images emphasize clean lines and carefully balanced compositions, while others focus on people, history, dramatic light, or the way a building interacts with its surroundings.

#8 “Breath Of Light, Wings Of Peace” By Aubra Franklin

1st Place in the Fine Art Category Description: “The white ribs of Santiago Calatrava’s Oculus spread between the towers of Lower Manhattan. Aubra Franklin photographs the building in the pale light of dawn, with its entrance glowing against the quiet plaza. The contrast between the low, winged form and the vertical skyline gives the scene its structure.”

#9 “Symmetric Living” By Florian Kriechbaumer

1st Place in the Symmetry Category Description: “Four houses occupy the tip of a frond on Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. Seen directly from above, their pools, roofs and gardens form a near mirror image. Florian Kriechbaumer timed the photograph so that the shadows reinforced the arrangement, with sand and turquoise water framing the scene.”

While extraordinary architecture naturally makes for compelling subject matter, the competition also reflects PERSPA’s broader goal of encouraging people to see the places around them differently. Sometimes, a change of angle is all it takes to turn an everyday street, staircase, façade, or interior into something worth lingering over.

#10 “Glass Voyager” By Theo Michael

Honorable Mention in the Fine Art Category Description: “The glass sails of the Fondation Louis Vuitton become a vessel crossing a sea of clouds. Theo Michael used multiple exposures to develop the nautical idea in Frank Gehry’s design, turning an immovable building into an imagined ship under way.”

#11 “Chromatic Intersect” By Martin Wacker

3rd Place in the Geometry Category Description: “Blue and yellow bands curve across one another in a tightly framed view of a modern façade. Martin Wacker removes most of the surrounding city, letting the building’s color and rhythm fill the photograph. Windows and shadows remain just visible beneath the strong graphic pattern.”

#12 “Suburban Dystopia” By Florian Kriechbaumer

1st Place in the Aerial Category Description: “Rows of nearly identical villas repeat across a purpose-built community on the outskirts of Dubai. A change from pale yellow to pink divides the grid, while straight roads organize the houses into regular blocks. Florian Kriechbaumer’s aerial view makes the scale of that repetition visible at once.”

#13 “Endless Staircase By Ólafur Elíasson” By Massimo Borchi

1st Place in the Stairs Category Description: “Steps and railings curl into a loop in Massimo Borchi’s photograph of Ólafur Elíasson’s endless staircase. Viewed from below, the structure becomes difficult to follow: the eye travels upward, turns and seems to arrive where it began. Black and white keeps attention on the route of the stairs.”

#14 “Aonde Já Foi Casa” By Carlos Archer

Honorable Mention in the Historic & Heritage Category Description: “Leaves cover the floor and climb the iron framework of a disused greenhouse in Porto. Carlos Archer photographed it for a series about places that were once homes. The curved glazing still encloses the room, while plants have spread into the space people left behind.”

#15 “Brilliant Star City” By Di Chang

2nd Place in the Industrial Category 3rd Place in the Night & Low Light Category Description: “Pipes, towers and platforms shine blue and gold against the night in DI CHANG’s industrial series Brilliant Star City. The photographer describes a childhood fascination with illuminated factories seen from the road. Here, the dense network of lights makes an industrial structure resemble an elaborate city in miniature.”

#16 “Pretty In Pink” By Jeannette Matthies

1st Place in the Human & Architecture Category Description: “A small figure sits where two vast walls meet, almost lost between pale pink and cream surfaces. Jeannette Matthies photographed a housing development with very little of its surroundings in view. The narrow strip of ground is enough to show just how large the walls are.”

#17 “Summer Swim At Molitor” By Soo Burnell

1st Place France Description: “Two swimmers sit at the edge of Piscine Molitor, facing the water beneath the tiers of its Art Deco building. Their matching poses and bathing caps echo the orderly architecture. Soo Burnell leaves the pool almost empty, allowing the pale blue, yellow and white to carry the picture.”

#18 “La Mágia De Las Formas Y La Luz” By Jordi Egea Torrent

1st Place in the Black And White Category Description: “A sequence of white curves rises above a dark reflection in Jordi Egea Torrent’s study of Zaha Hadid’s architecture. The view brings several of the building’s flowing forms together, from a tall folded edge to lower, wave-like volumes. Black and white emphasizes the transition from light to shadow.”

#19 “Evening At The Registan” By Emily M. Wilson

2nd Place in the Cultural Category Honorable Mention in the Historic & Heritage and Human & Architecture Categories Description: “Visitors cross the broad square of the Registan in Samarkand as evening light settles over its tiled façades and turquoise domes. Emily M. Wilson keeps the people in the foreground, some blurred by movement, so the monumental buildings remain part of a place being used rather than an empty architectural view.”

#20 “Star Wars” By Dámaso Ávila

3rd Place in the Fine Art Category Description: “On the roof of Casa Milà in Barcelona, chimney forms seem to gather like a cast of strange characters. Dámaso Ávila saw echoes of the Star Wars films in Antoni Gaudí’s architecture. His low viewpoint and dark background give each rounded, masked form a distinct presence.”

#21 “The Golden Timber” By Wisawarut Kekina

3rd Place in the Modern & Architecture Category Description: “A cyclist passes beneath a vast timber structure at Osaka Expo 2025. Evening light turns the columns and beams gold. The repeated frames carry the eye into the distance, while the small bicycle and rider bring this monumental piece of construction back to the scale of daily life.”

#22 “The Arcade Sun” By Petr Vapenik

1st Place in the Geometry Category Description: “A yellow lamp becomes a small sun at the center of an arcade ceiling near Wenceslas Square in Prague. Petr Vapenik made the photograph just after a spring storm darkened the sky enough to switch on the interior lighting. The bright circle interrupts the ceiling’s otherwise orderly grid.”

#23 “Topologie_urbaine” By Misa Ato

2nd Place in the Black And White Category Description: “Balconies project from L’Arbre Blanc in Montpellier like a stack of open drawers. Misa ATO’s low viewpoint separates the pale platforms against a dark sky, while their railings and slatted canopies create a second layer of fine lines. The photograph is part of the series Topologie_urbaine.”

#24 “Gone Into The Woods” By Dorota Qaid

Honorable Mention in the Abstract Category Description: “What looks like a cavern is the interior of a souvenir shop at the National Museum of Qatar. Its design draws on a local cave. Dorota Qaid follows the rippling timber surfaces, where curved lighting and small recessed lamps reveal the construction behind the illusion.”

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