Fazit: Realities: United

Art for the green-energy future

The architecture studio realities: united operates on the interfaces between art and architecture, urbanism and ecology. The two brothers’ works have long been included in renowned art collections including that of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In their experimental construction projects, realities: united unite smart visions with technically simple and ecologically valuable solutions. Their plans for the project Flussbad Berlin, an enormous swimming pool carved out of the Spree River before the backdrop of the new City Palace, exemplify their participatory understanding of urban planning. And as Fazit demonstrates, there is no reason a cooling tower should not become a sculpture. With the shift to clean energy, the monumental structure, an emblem of monstrous environmental devastation, loses its function. realities: united are already thinking about new connotations that might come to be bound up with these giants: as outsize communication devices, they send ring-shaped smoke signals into the atmosphere–in an age in which digital smart cities have become a pervasive yet unseen part of the fabric of our lives.