florian w. mueller captures the essence of buildings across cities

photographer florian w. mueller has always perceived architecture as a kind of sculpture, highly influenced and singular with every changing era. in the 1970s, the brutalist movement has shook the world with its bold use of materials and shapes — particularly the the raw concrete church designs by gottfried böhm. but looking at the former german democratic republic (east), one is faced with the clean-cut, function oriented and very reduced bauhaus style known as ‘plattenbauten’ — which translates into buildings constructed with large slabs of prefabricated concrete. 

hong kong
all images © florian w. mueller

for florian w. mueller, all those historic building styles are artworks of their own. hence, in this image series titled ‘singularity, he attempts to find the perfect angle and combine it with the form and essence of the architecture through his subjective perspective. in other words, he has ‘reduced the buildings to themselves. like a sculpture on a pedestal in a clean gallery or museum’.

cologne

to be honest, this series started […] with a couple of pictures I took in new york last november and I instantly fell in love with that reduced look. then I crawled though my archive of the last two years and found more candidates […] from hong kong, england, spain, france and germany’, explains the photographer. 

cologne

cologne 

hong kong

duesseldorf

duesseldorf

new york

hong kong

dresden 

hong kong

duesseldorf

duesseldorf

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: lea zeitoun | designboom