Tom Schiff Shares the Story Behind ‘Civic Architecture Across America: Extraordinary Views’

Around 2000, Thomas Schiff began traveling the country taking photographs. He pursued the lifelong passion alongside a career in insurance, gradually turning the weekend hobby into a decades-long documentation of American landmarks. 

During his travels, the resident of Cincinnati would take pictures for several projects at a time, including one focused on our nation’s most beautiful public buildings. They are the subject of his latest book, Civic Architecture Across America: Extraordinary Views.

His photographs provide a unique look at these landmarks. Each is created using a specialized panoramic camera that sits on a tripod and swings in a circle to capture a 360-degree (and in some cases up to 390-degree) photograph of a space. 

Schiff estimates that he visited more than 100 sites for the project, producing about 140 panoramic photographs for the book. Each chapter also includes essays from historians and architects who help contextualize the sites. We talked with Schiff about the book’s connection to our nation’s 250th anniversary, specific sites featured and what he hopes readers will take away.

In what ways do you see the book connecting with the America 250 celebration?
The whole theme of the book and the exhibition was to refresh people’s memory of all the great buildings that are used to conduct the democratic process around the country: the statehouses where all the state officials pass state laws and courthouses to administer justice. There are some photographs [in the book] of George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, and also Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.

You photographed the Newark Earthworks for this book. How do you see that site fitting in with theme of this book?
I think it just adds a different aspect, a different flavor. We think of the country as only 250 years old when you think of the starting point as the Declaration of Independence, [but] life in the country, life in Ohio, goes back thousands of years before that. The Earthworks is what’s left of that civilization.

What do you hope readers take away from the book?
I hope it will give them a little sense of history, and it will kind of remind them of their school days when they studied American history. … I hope it will remind them of those times and allow them to reflect on our country and how unique it was in the course of history.

For more information, visit trschiff.com.

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