A new social type was being created by the apartment building, a cool, unemotional personality impervious to the psychological pressures of high-rise life, with minimal needs for privacy, who thrived like an advanced species of machine in the neutral atmosphere.
– J.G. Ballard, High-Rise, 1975
This is the premise for ‘s brutalist architecture artwork collection titled, A Future City from the Past. Since completing his architectural studies in Munich and Rome, Clemens has been designing 3D computer models, reflecting and exploring urban utopias of the 20th century.
An urban, scientific research at the Technical University of Munich on mid century, large-scale apartment buildings, led Gritl to gain a deep fascination for such structures. In contrast to contemporary architecture these projects are based on revolutionary social visions. His work focuses on the interaction between space, dimension, scale, monotony, and materiality of urban megastructures and their possible impact on human beings.
The photorealistic presentation is closely aligned with 1960s architecture photography which documents a singular, unbroken optimism and the radical zeitgeist of its era. The choice to create the works in black and white, was one made to ensure the plasticity of brutalist architecture was illustrated in its truest form.
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