Photo exhibition in the GAF gallery shows changing architecture
Thousands of forced laborers gave their lives for this expression of the Nazi megalomania. They worked on the monstrous submarine bunker Valentin in Bremen – which was never finished. After the war, the Allies knew nothing else to do with it than to test a bomb that would break concrete from the monster. And today? Is the massive ruin a memorial and a strange setting for an offshore bathing beach. Local recreation instead of Nazi barbarism – just one example of transformation processes documented by the new exhibition in the Galerie für Fotografie (GAF) in the ice cream factory.
Under the title “Transformation – Beyond Imagination”, Wolfgang Nebel shows how social hubris is reflected in architecture and social change in its conversion. From hubris to hedonism: Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin – once an airport, now a leisure area – is of course there, as is the “Tropical Islands” bathing paradise in the former Cargolifterhalle in the Brandenburg district of Dahme-Spreewald, a relatively recent example of excessive obsession with progress. The fast breeder – a building that has become a symbol of the past dependence on nuclear power – is now a leisure park called “Wunderland” with a chain carousel. The iron and steel works planned by Alfred Thyssen in Duisburg now serves as a cultural and leisure center.
Surprisingly colorful panoramas
Nebel, full-time professor of computer science at the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg and an appointed member of the German Academy of Technical Sciences, vividly shows the change from a working-class to a leisure and service society, in partly oversized panoramas – some 2.50 meters high – of surprising Colourfulness. Sometimes this takes on absurd traits, for example when races are held underground in a former potash mine, with runners in brightly colored sportswear in front of concrete-gray tunnel walls. The ruins of past belief in technology become the backdrop for private enjoyment.
Other things are shown by photos from Hanover: Fog has photographed halls that have died in the last few months. Some transformations are reversible.
- The exhibition in the GAF (Seilerstraße 15d) will open on Wednesday, October 13th at 7 p.m. under 3-G conditions. That means: those who have recovered, who have been vaccinated and who have been tested have access. For the rest of the term (until November 21), 3 G.
By Stefan Gohlisch