Concept

The intent

Photographic snapshots capture residential buildings – from the outside – in their uninhabited state. Aspects such as temporal change, urban identity, restoration, preservation versus architectural renewal and living in a Europe that is currently dynamic in many respects are the subject of my considerations.
Time, memory and transience of man-made buildings are discussed in an artistic framework.

The beginning

"The facade is maintained."
The supported facades, for example in Lisbon, are obvious to visitors. Behind it there is nothing left to bear witness to who once lived here, loved people, fought conflicts or was simply at home.
They are clear, radical signs in the middle of otherwise intact streets. On the one hand, they are conditionally monuments. On the other hand, the facades show something else: the will to (at least) preserve these facades in order to perhaps create something new behind them later.
They do not belong to forgotten, dilapidated houses that stand carelessly on the sidelines. The facade floats in the present, robbed of its original identity in the middle of inhabited buildings and at the same time remains between the past and the future - the facade as a bearer of hope, as a multi-layered object of speculation, as a symbol of change?

Inspired by the floating facades in Lisbon, I have been consciously searching for the facades of empty residential buildings ever since.

socio-cultural

Even if a building is externally material, so is the atmosphere of the dwelling; the stone face that looks back at you, something immaterial and at the same time (culturally and) relevant to contemporary history.
Vacant homes are easy to find if you look for them. The number seems almost endless in a Europe where living space is scarce and often unaffordable.
 

The present gnaws away at the past.

How it was,
how it is
and it seems
like everyone thinks.