Endangered Species: Unclaimed Brutalism

Kolektiv Cité Radieuse presents at Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation in Marseille, the work of a leading contemporary Czech illustrator, Jan Sramek. Through a selection of illustrations, animated films and textiles, Endangered species pays tribute to the Czechoslovak architectural heritage of the 1960s-1980s and more generally, to the fragile legacy of Modern architecture.

Since 2010, Jan Sramek has intended to contribute to the preservation of this brutalist heritage. Multiplying media channels (comic books and award-winning graphic stories, press illustrations, animated films and video clips), Jan, who considers himself an illustrator-activist, has created a familiar visual universe alternating dystopian and playful accents. Interludes preceding cinema screenings, educational books, and exhibitions replace soulless 3D visualizations. His drawings in slightly faded tones pop up in different locations of the urban environment, composing a backdrop of familiar buildings (motels, shopping centers, universities) and emblematic brutalist buildings.

Jan Sramek thus manages to create an emotional relationship with a contested and often neglected architectural heritage, depicting a period where public space was core to the concerns of urban planners, often resulting in ambitious urban developments. Like animal species on the verge of extinction, these concrete, steel and glass complexes are facing the gradual disappearance of their urban ecosystem. Oversized, these symbols built believing in a radiant future are dismantled or remodeled, gradually losing  their soul and giving way to a globalized and standardized architecture, solely driven by market principles.

In the concrete environment of the Unité d'Habitation, Endangered Species evokes the contrast offered by the interior sophistication of these brutalist palaces where the mosaics and crystal lighting fixtures of the Praha or Thermal Hotels stand out, thus emphasizing their place in architectural history of the 20th century.