Ulrich Schwarz
Potsdamer Straße 50 Berlin

Potsdamer Strasse 50, Berlin. This prosaic address hides an icon of modern architecture, the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin. Built between 1962 and 1968, it is the only structure Mies van der Rohe built in Europe after the Second World War. Despite the radically minimal floor plans, it is a complex spatial continuum realized with what only appears to be a simple set of tools. Mies van der Rohe’s staging is designed to fluidly shape and define the transitions between city and museum, public and non-public, interior and exterior, subject and object.

As a trained architect who has been photographing architecture for decades, Ulrich Schwarz looks for ways to translate space into sequences of images. To this end, he uses precise axial camera shifts to trace movements in space, image by image. When looking at the sequences in the book, each photograph is overwritten by the following variation; the motifs build on each other and eliminate each other at the same time. This strictly conceptual book questions our viewing habits and spatial experiences in a fascinating way.