ORANGE vs BLUE

Leipziger Straße, Berlin, Germany
Year: 2022
Print includes white border, embossing, signature and edition number

In my Berlin MINIMAL architecture series I try to capture the typical, diverse and often rough architecture of the german capital in a minimalist way.

The work shows a section of the skyscrapers on Leipziger Straße in Berlin Mitte, which are particularly interesting from the point of view of contemporary history.

The 27-story prefabricated buildings were, along with the television tower, the most dominant urban buildings in East Berlin and were designed by the architects Joachim Näther (then chief architect of the GDR) and Werner Strassenmeier (East Berlin star architect) and built between 1972 and 1982.
They also found illustration on a stamp of the German Post of the GDR.

The chosen image detail removes the façade from the gigantic prefabricated building complex and creates a minimalist point of view that gives observers the chance to recognize and enjoy the beauty of the geometric division and colorful (re)design.

To reinforce this paradigm shift, the effect of the sun was used, which in the golden hour, gives the original silver-gray facade a yellow-orange glow.
The color nuances were subsequently enhanced.
In addition, the sky was replaced by a dark blue tone, which on the one hand calms the image, but on the other hand also increases the contrast and contradiction between light and dark.