A Future City From The Past | Clemens Gritl’s Dystopian Brutalist Vision

A Future City From The Past is a project designed by German artist Clemens Gritl that explores radically aggressive futuristic urban dystopias inspired by mid-century architecture. A Future City From The Past | Clemens Gritl’s Dystopian Brutalist Vision has been displayed at Juliane Hundertmark Galerie in Berlin from November 8 to November 30, 2023, and reimagines the social visions of the past through detailed 3D computer models that depict an overwhelming Brutalist megacity. Gritl’s photo-realistic black-and-white landscapes, characterized by imposing concrete forms and articulated facades, evoke mesmerizing and menacing emotions, highlighting the discrepancy between rapid technological advancements and human experience.

Looming concrete forms stretch to the horizon, casting shadows across deserted motorways, their articulated facades and pitch-black windows bathed in an ominous, silent gloom. No life, just architecture. These bleak black and white landscapes, dominated by imposing geometric structures of a scaleless super-Brutalist megacity, overwhelm with their uncompromising, overpowering presence.

German artist Clemens Gritl envisions radically aggressive futuristic urban dystopias, extending Brutalist dogma to new extremes.

Inspired by revolutionary social visions of mid-century architecture and literary works like J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise and Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, Gritl’s detailed 3D computer models redefine the “urban utopias” of the 20th century. His digital constructs present disturbing architectural possibilities for an imagined urban future, reminiscent of the dark atmospheres in sci-fi films like Blade Runner and A Clockwork Orange.

Gritl inverts the optimism inherent in 1960s architecture photography, where monuments become monsters. “The choice to create the works in black and white ensures the plasticity of brutalist architecture is illustrated in its purest form,” Gritl explains.

Technically, his work blurs the lines between photography, CGI (computer-generated images), CAAD (computer-aided architectural design), image manipulation, and digital painting. Gritl combines archaic and modern digital techniques to craft his dystopian vision, emphasizing the gap between rapid technological progress and human experience.

Since completing his architectural studies in Munich and Rome, Clemens Gritl has focused on 3D architectural computer models that explore 20th-century urban utopias. His photorealistic presentations align with 1960s architecture photography, capturing a singular, unbroken optimism and the radical spirit of that era.

Gritl’s work has been featured in several high-profile exhibitions. His video installation about Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin, a radical urban design for Paris from 1925, is part of the exhibition “Beauty” by Sagmeister & Walsh. In 2019, the same project was shown at the Museum Für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt. Additionally, the Museum Contemporary Calgary in Canada reopened in 2019 with an exhibition of his work, and in 2020, Bob Geldof’s band The Boomtown Rats published their first album in 36 years, featuring one of his artworks on the cover.

In an interview, Gritl discussed the impact of Brutalist architecture on his work: “During my studies, I spent long hours at the university library. The architectural photographs of the 1960s and 70s had a huge impact on me; I loved the dramatic shadow casts on sculptural concrete facades. But many Brutalist buildings and cityscapes I visited myself provoked contradictory feelings, between fascination and criticism. On the one hand, I could sense the radical, revolutionary zeitgeist; on the other hand, I found dysfunctional, vast spaces and partly inhuman scale. My artwork investigates exactly that field of tension.”

Gritl’s dystopian cityscapes are meant to evoke both mesmerizing and menacing emotions. He highlights the discrepancy between rapid technological advancements and human experience. His digital constructs are inspired by the revolutionary social visions of mid-century architecture, as well as the dark atmospheres of sci-fi films.

Clemens Gritl presents Part II of A Future City From The Past, continuing his exploration of 20th-century urban utopias. Following the success of the initial installment, Gritl delves deeper into mid-century architectural dreamscapes and dystopias, digitally rendering a series of artificial and 3D architectural models. These models, characterized by looming concrete forms and deserted motorways, create an ominous, silent gloom — no signs of life, only a vast expanse of Brutalist architecture.