With the visit to the district of Borsberg on the last day of 2020, the Dresden – 50mm project came to a preliminary photographic conclusion. Since the beginning in 2015 I have roamed through 120 Dresden city districts, made observations and recorded my impressions. This final update introduces the 15 districts that were still missing:
Buying food is one of the permitted exceptions to the requirement to stay at home, which was issued in spring 2020 in Dresden as part of the general decree to combat the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
Since the beginning of the year, the COVID-19 virus has spread worldwide with increasing speed. To slow down the spread, areas were closed off, borders closed and social distancing practiced. Since March 21st, far-reaching restrictions have also applied in Dresden: after schools and universities, kindergartens, theaters, museums and cinemas had previously been closed, the citizens of the city are now only asked to use their home environment in exceptional cases, e.g. for grocery shopping and doctor visits or for the way to work.
Especially in the center of Dresden it is almost deserted, because of course, apart from the inhabitants, the otherwise numerous tourists and visitors to the cultural institutions are missing here. The orphaned places have a peculiar charm, the sight is too unusual, at the same time, despite the spring-like weather, the anxiety that the lack of people causes is palpable.
About 1000 kilometers lie between the Upper Silesian and the Rhine-Westphalian industrial area. In the past few years, I have covered the 500km in eastern direction several times to realize the photo project Górny Slask. In 2019, I headed west to visit an industrial region with a similar history for the first time.
Both regions were and are dominated by the mining industry, whose decline and the associated transformation processes in the Ruhr area began at the end of the 1950s, while in Upper Silesia the change began with the fall of the Iron Curtain and with the accession of Poland to the European Union driveaccelerated.
The last active colliery in the Ruhr area was closed at the end of 2018. Poland holds the leading position in Europe in terms of coal, although production is on the decline, but still represents the backbone of Polish heavy industry.
The change in the Ruhr area is far advanced, dumps are greened, abandoned factories and brownfields became landscaped parks. However, awareness of the cultural value of the remains and evidences of industrial history also grew in the early 1970s. Exemplary here Zollverein colliery and coking plant, today recognized UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Landscape Park Duisburg-Nord and the colliery Zollern, Germany’s first industrial monument whose demolition was prevented in 1969.
Primarily in these places, the photo series were taken: Note: Clicking on a photo starts the corresponding gallery view.
machines, steel and rustmonochromecolours of the ‘Pott’film photographs
Note: Clicking on a photo starts the corresponding gallery view.
In the past few weeks, too, I let myself be thrown all over Dresden, to continue with my project started in 2015: Dresden 50mm. Photographs were taken in nine urban districts:
Leuben
Merbitz
Meusslitz
Podemus
Rochwitz
Roitzsch
Rossendorf
Sporbitz
Unkersdorf
All previously created photo series are shown on the project page.
… in a town of real existing socialism 30 years after its demise
‘Hütte’ (acronym for ironworks), as the town on the west bank of the Oder is affectionately known by its inhabitants, was built at the beginning of the 50s of the last century as a socialist planned city and is today the largest surface monument in Germany.
The construction of Eisenhüttenstadt goes back to a decision of the 3rd Party Congress of the SED in 1950, which provided for the construction of an ironworks and an associated socialist residential town near Fürstenberg on the Oder river. In the same year, the ground was broken for the factory and the city.
Built in the style of socialist classicism, it was initially part of Fürstenberg, but was dissolved in 1953. The planned designation after Karl Marx was rejected after the death Stalin in its favor. Until 1961 the town was officially called Stalinstadt, in the vernacular also ‘Schrottgorod’. In the course of de-Stalinization, it was renamed Eisenhüttenstadt.
Eisenhüttenstadt
Built in the style of socialist classicism, it was initially part of Fürstenberg, but was dissolved in 1953. The planned designation after Karl Marx was rejected after the death Stalin in its favor. Until 1961 the town was officially called Stalinstadt, in the vernacular also ‘Schrottgorod’. In the course of de-Stalinization, it was renamed Eisenhüttenstadt.
The population increased steadily until the end of the 80s and reached 53,000 inhabitants. The steelworks employed up to 16,000 people. The political end of the GDR was followed by the economic decline of the East German Steelworks, which was no match for Western competition. The threatening end of the work would probably have meant the end of the city. Therefore, it was a political decision to subsidize the privatization with, among other things, EU funds. Today, the plant belongs to the ArcelorMittal Group and still employs 2,500 people.
The shrinkage of the city, which began in 1990 as a continuous process, was only slightly dampened. By 2018, Eisenhüttenstadt has lost a good half of its population.
The visit to the city, which resembles a journey through time, conveys a peculiar mood: streets, squares and many buildings appear oversized, measured by the current conditions. Buildings from recent times are missing almost completely, because there is simply no need for it. The city seems strangely empty and inanimate – right in the center, no wonder, if half of the original inhabitants are missing.
Eisenhüttenstadt
The renovation in the urban core area has made great progress, so that individual buildings with uncertain future become particularly obvious. Suddenly you also get into areas of the city, which are characterized by vacancy and demolition. Hard to say what future the city is imminent, beyond which as a monument to socialist urban planning and architecture.
Recently my project Dresden 50mmcelebrated its first half finish. With the current update now 62 districts are visited, while 59 divisions of Dresden are still waiting to be inspected.Following the random principle, the patchwork carpet of the city map will further discolour in the following months until the full white and gray of the card face the colors of the photo series.
A trip by train from Zittau back to Dresden in autumn 2018 inspired me to a small photo project whose implementation could be realized in the Easter season 2019.With bike and camera I traveled along the railway lines between Bischofswerda, Zittau and Görlitz.
20 years after the company Deutsche Bahn began to sell more than 2,000 train station buildings and properties in Germany on a large scale, because they were considered unprofitable, the effects are now clearly visible.While larger towns have been willing and able to maintain and modernize their stations, many others, either in the hands of speculators or regrettably failed private enthusiasts, are decaying.
What makes the sometimes difficult bearable state of the buildings with people who use stations like Putzkau or Neusalza-Spremberg daily on the work or school route?
Putzkau, HaltepunktBahnhof Neusalza-Spremberg
In some places, humor was proved and the unused and fenced building was provided with train-specific caricatures.
Bahnhof Taubenheim (Spree)
Often the power is enough only for a sarcastic comment.
