Shells are built by animals with no intention of making art, which may be why they hold the eye so long. Paul Starosta’s SHELLS, published by 5 Continents Editions in 2025, is given over to the collection assembled by Jacques and Rita Senders — material begun some fifty years ago and gathered, at least in part, for scientific study rather than for display.

Starosta photographs these specimens at close range, and the book’s square 24 cm format, across 240 pages, lets the plates function as a sequence rather than a checklist. What accumulates is a set of forms that keep sliding toward the made world: the curve of a stair, the profile of a vase, the face of a polished stone. The preface is by Paolo Portoghesi (1931–2023), the Italian architect and historian whose thinking moved between the historical and the contemporary. His contribution brings an architectural perspective to these natural forms.

Starosta’s authority in this territory is twofold. He is a biologist as well as a photographer and has published more than forty books on plants and animals, so his attention to structure, join, rib and lip is informed rather than merely admiring. A closing section returns the images to information, pairing small photographs with notes on the life, characteristics and families of the shells shown. Plate and annotation establish two registers that do not compete.

For collectors, the interest lies in the relationship between the photographs and their scientific context. The square format gives each image comparable weight; the scientific apparatus keeps looking from becoming mere ornament; and Portoghesi’s preface places these natural constructions within a longer history of form. SHELLS is not an identification guide, nor is it a decorative album. It is a sustained act of close looking, and it makes its case quietly: the most ordinary object on the beach is architecture we did not have to design.