Originally trained as a sculptor, Thomas Demand displays a keen sense of space and volume in his work, and his place in contemporary German photography is entirely unique. He approaches photography as a means of preserving his painstakingly created, ephemeral paper constructions, but inevitably the camera becomes central to his creative process. At first glance, Demand's works seem to present fragments of a hyperreal and familiar place but, before long, they reveal their true identity: a wholly artificial world reduced to generic forms. Large immaculate photographs of interiors and architectural exteriors - a world peopled with inanimate objects and bathed in uniform lighting - are mounted on Plexiglas which underscores the materiality of the photographic object. For each of his reproductions, Demand constructs life-size models using paper and cardboard. At no time do Demand's forms seem to strive for the perfect illusion: he always allows signs of their true nature to show through. This book is the first monograph on the work of Thomas Demand.