One is not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but this new photography book by Hungarian photographer Gábor Kasza quite literally exposes its content with an unusual case made of real concrete. Kasza’s new book is titled “Concrete Passages About Closeness and Coldness... and a Couple of Songs”, and contains a photography series depicting concrete buildings and interiors as metaphors of human relationships and togetherness. Duality is a key concept throughout the book, manifesting not only in photos of couples, but also in the way images are placed on the pages to create visual juxtapositions. “This is a poetic photo series about relationships,” Kasza explains in a text about the project. “It is as if we are strolling amongst the pieces of a contemporary opera set. Only that, the stories take place in concrete spaces.”

Evocative and powerful, Kasza’s images indeed seem to tell a story of togetherness framed by the cold and minimal volumes of unfinished concrete buildings. But it’s perhaps the limited-edition concrete case containing the book that steals the show. The case is made to literally expose the book’s theme to vision and touch, and the concrete used to make it is only four millimetres thick. Kasza approached a team of designers with his idea, who dismissed the whole concept as “probably impossible”; he then set out to try to create the case himself, and after one year of experiments he managed to create a prototype that was solid enough to hold the book but without being too heavy. A limited edition of 50 books with concrete cases is now available via Kasza’s Indiegogo campaign, which will help raise the funds for printing his new book and distributing it to photography lovers worldwide.

BOOK DETAILS:
Size: 290 mm x 205 mm (9.84 in. x 8.07 in.)
Print: offset, stochastic screening dots
Paper: matte coated 150 g and double bended pages 170 g
Hard cover at back
56 pages / ​16 images