The prestigious Berlin gallery, housed within the former brutalist St. Agnes church, merges mid-century analog photography with spatial ambient installations for a unique multi-sensory experience.

BERLIN — Berlin’s renowned König Galerie has officially opened a new exhibition titled “Concrete & Resonance,” dedicated to redefining the brutalist and socialist architectural heritage of East Berlin (Ost-Berlin) through a fusion of medium-format analog photography and spatial ambient audio installations.

The exhibition is set within the monumental space of St. Agnes—a former brutalist church in the Kreuzberg district designed in the 1960s by architect Werner Düttmann—allowing the gallery space itself to become an active, equal participant in the artistic showcase.

A Dialogue Between Photography and Spatial Audio

Concrete & Resonance explores the forgotten aesthetic value and acoustic potential of the massive monoliths and prefabricated housing blocks (Plattenbauten) constructed during the era of socialist modernism across Marzahn, Lichtenberg, and along the Karl-Marx-Allee corridor.

The visual component consists of large-format black-and-white photographs shot exclusively on medium-format analog film. These prints capture the tactile textures of prestressed concrete, bold geometric symmetries, and the stark interplay of shadows across the facades.

Complementing the imagery is a multi-channel spatial audio installation composed by a collective of contemporary electronic and ambient musicians. The soundscapes were crafted from field recordings gathered inside the interior courtyards and central foyers of Berlin’s concrete structures, broadcast via speaker systems suspended beneath the gallery’s 20-meter-high ceiling.

Brutalism as Modern Inspiration

Organizers emphasize that the exhibition arrives at a moment when brutalist architecture is undergoing a major aesthetic renaissance among a new generation of European designers, visual artists, and electronic music producers.

Rather than viewing these concrete monuments as cold remnants of a divided political past, Concrete & Resonance frames them as living sound resonators and enduring monuments to a bygone urban vision.