Raoul Kevenhörster

A place fades, yet its energy lingers in the space—as a photographic testimony to Berlin’s urban transformation, my two works reflect the memory of the invisible. At the historical address of Klosterstrasse 62 in Mitte, the sustainable redesign of the "Sixty2" construction project marks yet another metamorphosis of the urban fabric. I embark on a visual search for an architecture that has long since dematerialized within the cityscape. Rather than documenting absence as a loss, I employ the technique of multiple exposure to grasp the site as a space rich in history and to uncover its past as an urban palimpsest. This photographic quest connects directly with the thoughts of Swiss artist and cultural journalist Dörthe Bäumer (born 1964, Münster/Westf.): "Every city carries the phantom image of its own past within it; the invisible traces of vanished buildings often shape the atmosphere of a place more strongly than what is actually still standing." This theoretical foundation ties in closely with the reflections of Swiss sociologist Lucius Burckhardt (1925–2003, Basel) that urban landscapes primarily emerge as perceptual constructions of the observer. As architecture and art historian Vittoria Di Palma (born 1966, New York) emphasizes, urban brownfields unfold their aesthetic power precisely through the exposure of concealed strata of time. There, the unfinished stimulates the imagination, while the fragmentary develops its own poetry of transience.

My photographic works were created on June 21, 2026, at the corner of Klosterstrasse and Grunerstrasse in Berlin-Mitte. Through numerous overlays, they condense the architectural transition process amidst the urban environment. On this site, the sustainable redesign of the former GDR building into the "Sixty2" project—designed by Tchoban Voss Architekten—is taking shape as sophisticated construction within the ongoing urban context on the historic grounds of the former Palais Schwerin. That magnificent Baroque jewel served as the workplace of the scholar of neuhumanism and classical liberalism Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835, present-day Berlin) before it was destroyed in the Second World War and replaced in the 1970s by this GDR administrative building. Instead of demolition, today's renovation relies on the sustainable transformation of East Modernism under the slogan "Rethink the Platte." This principle does not view the serial concrete construction of the GDR era as an urban planning flaw; rather, it conceives the embodied energy bound within the reinforced concrete of the shell structure as an invaluable resource for contemporary, circular architecture. Although the historic Chaos Kluster from the 13th century did not stand directly on this building plot, but a few meters away in the quarter, my composition symbolically weaves the current construction site together with the entire historical aura of the monastic quarter.

The two multiply exposed images make the invisible speak: As a pictorial triptych, they combine the architectural heritage with the temporary traces of the major construction site and the building fronts of the surroundings, while the Berlin cloudscape arches above. In the foreground, graffiti tags document the contemporary scenery. At the same time, these profane fragments are overlaid by immense, overexposed fields of light and clouds that dissolve the motif upward. I thereby create a prismatic sacrality. In the dense layering of light and shadow, the predecessor buildings emerge as an energetic protective envelope over the construction site.

Through artistic reflection, my photographic work points toward a substance-preserving renewal that extends far beyond the mere management of history. Embedded in real Berlin structural change—as currently unfolding during the renovation phase at the nearby Molkenmarkt and demonstrated at the House of Statistics—the site stands representatively for contemporary building culture. From the once inaccessible, bureaucratic monolithism of the GDR era emerges a humanistic, circular place that shifts the focus from pure representation to lived urbanity and accessibility. I transform classical photography from a tool of pure documentation into an instrument of visual archaeology. "Rethink the Platte" – Klosterstrasse Sixty2 reveals the future of the city in the awareness of its invisible strata of time as a space for the building culture of tomorrow. In the sense of architect and urban researcher Rem Koolhaas (born 1944 in Rotterdam), this processual character of urban development shapes itself as "the continuous construction of the human mind out of reality and perception."

Paths to Insight Between Stardust and the Foundation Pit

1. The Demand of Space

"The only constant in life is change," taught Heraclitus. We navigate landscapes that transcend mere

physical space; they are resonance chambers of our existence. Each sensory impression, every image

we capture, serves as an orientation point in a world that recomposes itself in every moment. We

measure the unfathomable by imbuing the energy that surrounds us daily with structure—a perennial

search for stability amidst the kinetics of duration.

2. The Dialectics of Weight

This field of tension is best illustrated by two opposing poles: On one side stands the perspective of

Carl Sagan (1934–1996), who, in his seminal work "Cosmos," envisions the universe as an

architecture of immanent, physical order. Conversely, the Russian writer Andrei Platonov (1899–

1951) challenges us: in his work "The Foundation Pit" (Kotlovan), it is the existentially charged weight of

matter that interrogates the world, while his novel “Happy Moscow” (Schastlivaya Moskva) portrays the

arduous construction of the subway as human agony and a profound, painful anchoring in the

underground. Between these poles, architecture unfolds as a necessary process: it is a continuous

becoming that does not merely grasp space formally, but functions as a built manifestation—a direct

formation of our existence, in which life is understood as a permanent construction.

3. The Constructive Interface

Here, the encounter takes place between cosmic order—a state of constant contingency and fragile

constellation, in which weight masquerades as a condition of suspension—and the existential weight of

Platonov’s world. The latter is permeated by suffering, fleeting joy, and that paralyzing inescapability

which remains the only certainty. My works are created through the pictorial layering of multiple

moments in time — often with a density of image layers in the high double-digit range — a structure

emerges that redefines space as a highly complex, elastic event. The work does not document a

conventional perspective, but presents a processual, formative act of transformation on an image-

edifice. By architecturally constructing this condensation, I open a resonance chamber in which insight

acts as a shared experience.

4. The Unnamed Threshold Space

In the layering of these photographic works, architectural fixpoints function to stabilize the visual

narrative flow and offer the gaze a foothold. Precisely here gapes the unnamed intermediate space—an

element of indeterminacy that only defines itself through perception. It is a threshold space where

cosmic perspective, statics of construction, and the dynamics of city life collide.

5. The Phenomenological Reduction

This space demands engagement. It is not intended to be inhabited. To grasp it in its depth requires an

attitude that transcends mere analysis: a form of phenomenological reduction, a state of conscious

openness in which all conceptual preconceptions are suspended. In this mode of perception, a

dissolution of the ego from its fixed identity takes place, akin to what Friedrich Schiller described as a

merging with matter.

6. The Moment of Shaping

It is not a blind affect, but a highly concentrated receptivity that allows the urban fabric and the cosmic

reference to be experienced as a unity. My images are created directly on site, in a conscious

engagement with the environment. Here, the individual human being enters the image as a vessel for

those fleeting impulses in which the statics of matter reveal themselves as a lived experience.

7. The Paradox of Routine

Naturally, this process of deep perception is no guarantee of enlightenment. Mostly, it occurs in the

most profane of moments: while waiting at a traffic light whose timing is as relentless as the cosmic

order itself, or in the dense crush of the subway, where one suddenly realizes that the "multiple

coordinate system" of the world consists of nothing but a large number of people all trying to remember

where they left their bags. Here, in the absurdity of the everyday, the circle closes—for it is precisely in

this moment of amusement that realization becomes the most human of impulses.

8. The Kinetics of Insight

Insight does not unfold linearly here; it is a charging interplay, a constant layering and reflection, in

which the retardant moment—the hesitation before final determination—serves as a necessary

corrective. Insight thus becomes a cumulative movement: a layering in which every new understanding

rests upon the previous one, while simultaneously casting it into a new, elastic light. Only in this

openness can the multiple coordinate system transition from a theoretical construct into a living

intuition. In this state of highly intense consciousness, the actual encounter of forces unfolds.

9. Three Modalities of Transformation

When the systematic engagement with Sagan’s physical order meets the existential friction of

Platonov’s world—the anthropological shock, the sensory experience, and the fleeting movements of

the soul—that spark arises in which, through analytical precision, insight can emerge from condensed

perception. This movement unfolds in three modalities: 1. Physical movement: The gaze probes

stratifications and measures the architectural force fields of urban infrastructure. 2. Cognitive

movement: The mind oscillates between the poles of order, significance, and endurance. 3.

Transformative movement: Insight does not appear here as a static result; it releases itself from the

continuous shifting of the viewpoint.

10. Architecture of the Gaze

This practice transforms the photographic image into an optical installation. While artists like Tomás

Saraceno or Gordon Matta-Clark thematize the relationship between human, architecture, and cosmos

through spatial interventions, I perform this act through a dynamic architecture of the gaze. My images

are a constructive process: I reassemble the space of exposure from different points in time in order to

re-map it as a complex constellation grown in layers.

11. The Cartography of Impact

We do not map the result; we visualize the impact. In this undefined area, in this threshold space of

action, experience is composed of sensory reflection, architectural process, philosophical inquiry, and

the vast, infinite gaze upon the cosmos. Why, then, do we measure space? Measuring is far more than

an analytical act; it is a fundamental act of unfolding. In a tradition that defines survival through holding

on, remembrance through naming, and understanding through perpetual questioning, my dynamic

cartography becomes an existential expression of life. It is an act of bearing witness to a fragmented

world—an attempt not to mend its fractures, but to anchor oneself within them through an active,

sustained engagement.

12. The Constitution of the Landscape of Essence

My pictorial composition serves as the catalyst for the constitution of the landscape of essence: It is no

longer an external depiction, but the result of that layering in which architecture, time, and human

experience merge into a unity. At this moment, when cartography reaches its limits, the image takes

form anew as a constructive act of realization: truth emerges as a contingent construction. It is here that

the essence of the image reveals itself as an open resonance chamber for existence.