Berlin, Germany

Brutalism: A Photographic Approach

In this course, the participants are going to set out in search of brutalist buildings in Berlin and reflect on brutalism by taking pictures of them: their concrete surface and formal expression will be released through photography and examined as a source of art material.

The term ‘brutalism’ does not mean the adjective brutal but the French béton brut, the expression used to describe exposed concrete. Brutalist buildings break the familiarity of the conventional formal language. They are concrete memories of the post-war period and represent the utopias of social coexistence.

Only a few architectural styles had such a hard time as brutalism. Experts cannot even agree whether one can call it an architectural style at all. Many only see ugly concrete blocks, and today several buildings are threatened with demolition. Nevertheless, those buildings were created in a time of experiments and social upheaval. They embody non-compromising, rigor, and radicalism and make architecture a social medium. No historical cement like the Berlin Palace or other fake historical buildings, no standardized investor architecture.

The course and its participants use an artistic approach to investigate how ethics and aesthetics may become prerequisites for any architect. That facade or technology never creates style, but only the artistic handling of it. The result of this workshop would be a photographic approach to architecture between everyday life, poetry, and theory.

Course leader

Stephanie Kloss

Fee info

EUR 300: Course fee

Scholarships

Available – For more information please visit our website.