Singularity
by Florian W. Mueller
A body of work by Florian W. Mueller exploring architecture as a form of sculpture
View Image GalleryAll images © Florian W. Mueller 2017
For me architecture is a kind of sculpture. In the 70’s there was this amazing trend in Brutalism, like the churches from the architect, Gottfried Böhm, made of concrete – the origin of that movement’s name: French “concrete brut” equals raw concrete. Then you have buildings in that wonderful clean, function-oriented bauhaus style, and in the former German Democratic Republic the very reduced “Plattenbauten”. For me as a photographer, all these buildings are artworks. In Singularity I reduced the buildings to themselves. Like a sculpture on a pedestal in a clean gallery or museum.
I realise that architecture photography and this very minimalistic style might not invite the viewer to reflect on anything, it might just be a good catalyst for rest. Some pictures in this ongoing series do raise questions: What does the neighbourhood look like? What about the other buildings?
I take a lot of pictures when I am on the road. You can imagine what a guy with a weakness for architecture often shoots? Right!…Buildings! To be honest, I started this series playing around with a couple of pictures I took in New York last November, and instantly fell in love with that reduced look. I crawled though my archive of the last two years and found more candidates for the series from Hong Kong, England, Spain, France and Germany. Before I go on the road now I research the area, looking for buildings that might fit into Singularity. Google Earth is a good buddy for that…
Florian W. Mueller, March 2017.