Skip to main content

Author: admin

Chandigarh, the concrete jungle

Chandigarh, the concrete jungle

The city is the capital of the Punjab region which is placed north of Delhi.
It was created in the early 50´s by a team of architects headed by Le Corbusier, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry.
The idea was to build a new city in the foothills of the Himalayas that fused Modern Movement and Garden City ideals.
Most of the Government buildings and Monuments were designed by Le Corbusier in his unique style.

  • Gunnar Knechtel Chandigarh, the concrete jungle

    KNECHTEL_CHANDIGARH-1

    India, Chandigarh, City designed by Le Corbusier and his team in the 50s. PGI Hospital, detail.

    +

  • Gunnar Knechtel Chandigarh

    KNECHTEL_CHANDIGARH-2

    Chandigarh open hand

    +

  • Gunnar Knechtel Chandigarh

    KNECHTEL_CHANDIGARH-3

    Concrete Jungle Chandigarh

    +

  • Concrete jungle

    KNECHTEL_CHANDIGARH-20

    +

  • Gunnar Knechtel Chandigarh, the concrete jungle

    KNECHTEL_CHANDIGARH-5

    +

  • Gunnar Knechtel Chandigarh, the concrete jungle

    KNECHTEL_CHANDIGARH-6

    India, Chandigarh, City designed by Le Corbusier and his team in the 50s. Chandigarh Architecture Museum

    +

  • Gunnar Knechtel Chandigarh, the concrete jungle

    KNECHTEL_CHANDIGARH-7

    India, Chandigarh, City designed by Le Corbusier and his team in the 50s. Atifical Sukhna Lake

    +

  • Gunnar Knechtel Chandigarh, the concrete jungle

    KNECHTEL_CHANDIGARH-10

    Indien, Chandigarh, Stadt, entworfen von Le Corbusier und seinem Team in den 50er Jahren. Öffentlicher Park in Sektor 22D.Engl.:India, Chandigarh, City designed by Le Corbusier and his team in the 50s. Public Park in Sector 22D.

    +

  • Gunnar Knechtel Chandigarh, the concrete jungle

    KNECHTEL_CHANDIGARH-11

    +

  • Gunnar Knechtel Chandigarh, the concrete jungle

    KNECHTEL_CHANDIGARH-14

    +

  • Gunnar Knechtel Chandigarh, the concrete jungle

    KNECHTEL_CHANDIGARH-15

    Indien, Chandigarh, Stadt, entworfen von Le Corbusier und seinem Team in den 50er Jahren. Sector 17. Bus Station. an..Engl.:India, Chandigarh, city, designed by Le Corbusier and his team in the 50s. Sector 17. Commercial Sector. Inter state Bus terminal

    +

  • KNECHTEL_CHANDIGARH_WEB-

    +

Continue reading

Frontón walls in Spanish Villages

Frontón walls in Spanish Villages

Frontón is a handball game where single or double opponents compete by hitting a small rubber ball with their hands against a wall.
Usually, the fronton wall can be found in the main square, the natural meeting spot of the villages.
In many places, the exterior of the church mural served as a fronton wall. Priests became well known players as they had the wall nearby and
met with the villagers after the Sunday mass for a match.
But when fronton became a more commercialized sport, the men of god retreated from competing and served as referees.
What once was a space for social gatherings and enthusiastic fronton competitions has often become a purposeless wall.
For the first part of my project, I photographed the fronton walls in the province of Soria, Zaragoza, Salamanca, Zamora and Avila.
The harsh living conditions of the isolated villages in Spain led to rural depopulation as people moved to the cities for better jobs and
opportunities. The present generation is still firmly rooted in their motherland, many spend their summer break in their former villages and get together for a fronton match.
But the glorious old days have passed.
What is left in the Spanish hinterland are empty or dune populated villages where the century old walls are reminders of a vivid past and a
fading cultural identity.

Why am I fascinated by Frontón walls:
Fronton walls are telling us a story of the people who have played here over the past centuries.
The walls are marked by the many ball hits and scribblings left over the years. I can still hear and feel the emotions of the players, the show,
and the spectators who went along, who cheered enthusiastically, and were pleased or upset when their favorite players lost. As you walk
around the village, you can hardly hear any sound apart from a bird chirping or the wind blowing around the closed houses.
The walls stand there in silence and could be confused with a unique and peculiar installation of a contemporary artist.

  • +

  • Frontón Gunnar Knecktel

    KNECHTEL_FRONTON-1

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-10

    +

  • Frontón Gunnar Knecktel

    KNECHTEL_FRONTON-2

    +

  • Frontón Gunnar Knecktel

    KNECHTEL_FRONTON-3

    +

  • Frontón Gunnar Knecktel

    KNECHTEL_FRONTON-4

  • Frontón Gunnar Knecktel

    KNECHTEL_FRONTON-5

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-6

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-7

    +

  • Frontón Gunnar Knecktel

    KNECHTEL_FRONTON-8

    +

  • Frontón Gunnar Knecktel

    KNECHTEL_FRONTON-9

    Fronton is a simple handball game where either single or double opponents try to outplay each other by hitting a small rubber ball with their hands against a wall.What once was a space for social gatherings of the rural population, an enjoyment of a play

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-11

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-12

    Fronton is a simple handball game where either single or double opponents try to outplay each other by hitting a small rubber ball with their hands against a wall.What once was a space for social gatherings of the rural population, an enjoyment of a play

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-13

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-14

    Fronton is a simple handball game where either single or double opponents try to outplay each other by hitting a small rubber ball with their hands against a wall.What once was a space for social gatherings of the rural population, an enjoyment of a play

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-15

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-16

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-17

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-18

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-19

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-20

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON-22

    +

  • +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON_WEB-22

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON_WEB-16

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON_WEB-18

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON_WEB-17

    +

  • +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON_WEB-2

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON_WEB-20

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON_WEB-21-2

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON_WEB-21

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON_WEB-19

    +

  • KNECHTEL_FRONTON_WEB-20-2

    +

Continue reading

Persistent Forms: Ruins and Sacred Stones across Europe

Persistent Forms investigates ruins, sacred stones, and fragmented structures across Europe not as historical monuments or documentary subjects, but as forms that continue to exist after the loss of their original meaning and function.
Developed through work produced in Spain, Germany, England, France, Latvia, and Poland, the project focuses on the continued physical presence of objects that have become detached from the systems that once defined them.

Ritual stones, sacred fragments, industrial remains, weathered religious figures, decommissioned infrastructure, and isolated façades are approached within the same visual framework.
A papal statue in an abandoned amusement park in Poland, cooling towers in the English countryside, an abandoned bridge column in Germany, or remote ritual structures are treated equally as persistent forms whose meaning has become unstable.
Traditional distinctions begin to dissolve.
Sacred and profane, historical and modern, religious and industrial no longer appear as separate categories, but as related states of continued presence.
The structures remain physically visible while their original context fades or becomes inaccessible.
The project reduces the role of place and historical explanation in order to shift attention toward form, materiality, erosion, fragmentation, and isolation.
Sites from different religious, historical, and industrial contexts are brought together within a unified photographic system that allows unexpected visual relationships and tensions to emerge.

Persistent Forms is conceived as a long-term photographic and research-based work in progress that will continue to expand through the production of new images across additional regions of Europe.
The final outcome is intended as an installation-based body of work in which images from different places and contexts are brought together within the same visual system.

Persistent Forms has partly been supported by the Kulturwerk der VG Bild-Kunst.

Continue reading