Christoph Morlinghaus's large scale C-prints derive from the work of Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, and Andreas Gursky. Though a generation younger, Morlinghaus follows their use of architecture—the building and the locale—as the point of departure. Exploiting the now-conventional methods and materials of ‘New German Photography’, he presents technically perfect images from large format cameras printed on huge C-print sheets. Shot with an even depth of field, the photographs could not be more razor-sharp.

I mistook them for Thomas Ruff's when I first saw them, especially an apartment building complex in Los Angeles in Erica (L.A.). The antiseptic, straight-on examination of the building seemed familiar and, by now, less than original. But closer examination of the show made it apparent that, at 28, Morlinghaus has developed an individual perspective from which he condenses meaning from architectural objects.

Unlike Gursky, who tends to capture his subjects from a distance with an all-encompassing, universal eye, Morlinghaus sets up his lens at a middle distance. We are offered an entire scene, yet close enough to feel as though we have entered its space. In the most impressive images, the futurist interior of the now-unused TWA terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, designed by Eero Saarinen, appears nostalgic and optimistic. The irregular curves and deserted cavernous hallways deny any sense of scale. It could be a model construction by James Casebere.

The selection of this once-high tech and now useless building defines Morlinghaus’s project. Though bathed in morning light, the structure is obsolescent. The evolution from idealist functionalism to archaic wasteland continues as a theme in a series of photographs of IG Farben buildings in Frankfurt. Built by the Nazis to house the chemical manufacturer infamous for mass producing the Cyclon-B gas used in concentration camps during WW II, the complex became Allies’ headquarters under Eisenhower. Like the TWA terminal, once a locus of power and action, the buildings are now unused, their grand marble halls and soaring building blocks falling into disrepair.

A photograph of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and an image of a remarkably high-tech Volkswagen plant interior, enable Morlinghaus to shift his timeline to the present. While the TWA terminal and the IG Farben headquarters are relics of past power, these contemporary locations embody current technological and cultural relevance. Capturing both spaces devoid of humans, Morlinghaus suggests that these areas, too, will eventually fall into impotency.

Jerry Saltz, art critic for the Village Voice, was in the gallery as I made notes for this review. He was impressed with the young German. “These works are post 911,” he said, "he makes you understand that everything new will look dated one day, that utopia is an illusion. After September 11, our relationship to history changed. It is no longer something to stand outside and criticize; it is something we have experienced." Morlinghaus depicts his architectural specimens with the critical clarity of that historical eye, even as they have yet to cross into past.