In 1990, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron asked Thomas Ruff to photograph one of their buildings for the Venice Biennale of Architecture (1991). Thomas Ruff wanted to take a picture of the Ricola warehouse in Laufen, but was unwilling to travel so far and therefore hired a photographer from Basel to do it for him according to his specifications. He then worked at the computer to assemble one picture out of the various photographs sent to him from Basel. Thomas Ruff went on to take more pictures of buildings by Herzog & de Meuron using techniques that he had already worked with before. He then began collaborating with the architects on some of their projects. Together, they designed the façade of the library at the University of Eberswalde using newspaper photographs from the eponymous series. They also worked together on the arcades of the Five Courts building complex of the HypoVereinsbank in Munich, to which they applied aerial photographs from the Stereo-Photos series.