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Posts from the ‘Industrial History’ category

Augsburg: Fugger, Luther, & water in Germany’s 3rd oldest city

Above/featured: Facing north on Maximilianstrasse: Steigenberger Hotel Drei Mohren (left), Fuggerhäuser (orange) – HL, 12 Mar 2017.

Why Augsburg?

  • Fugger family legacy
  • Martin Luther and the Reformation legacy
  • Water supply management, newly inscribed World Heritage Site

I had come to Augsburg to find and understand traces Martin Luther left behind in the city. What I learned was the extent of the lasting legacy provided by the Fugger family, and how the city has for centuries provided safe clean water to her citizens, and how that water management system has become world-renowned as a piece of cultural heritage, forming the basis of an application for recognition as a World Heritage Site.

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Hallstätter See, Lake Halstatt, Hallstatt, Salzkammergut, Upper Austria, Oberoesterreich, Austria, Oesterreich, UNESCO, World Heritage, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: dramatic spring morning over Lake Hallstatt

Overcast skies and intermittent showers have followed me this early morning from the city of and Austrian federal state of Salzburg and into Upper Austria. After disembarking the regional train at Hallstatt Bahnhof, I’m on a separate ferry across Hallstatt Lake into the town proper. It’s 740am, and even though I’m disappointed by the lack of springtime sun, that south-facing view is my first full visual welcome to the area and a sight I’ll savour and remember.

UNESCO inscribed the Hallstatt-Dachstein Salzkammergut region and its salt-making history as World Heritage Site in 1997.

I made the picture above on 25 May 2018 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime and the settings: 1/250-sec, f/11, ISO2000, and 18.5mm focal length (28mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins.com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-cWW.

Before Bauhaus: Alfeld Fagus Factory, UNESCO WHS

Before Bauhaus found its first footing in Weimar, there was in the town of Alfeld in central Germany the Fagus-Werk factory building.

The Fagus factory building is looked upon as the first building in the world for the modern architectural age, and is the predecessor to the elegant 1926 Bauhaus headquarters building in Dessau. Fagus company founder Karl Benscheidt commissioned architect and future Bauhaus founder, Walter Gropius, to create and build a shoe-making factory as an artistic project. Gropius and his collaborator Adolf Meyer stuck with working floor-plans by architect Eduard Werner, and set their sights on new exterior and interior designs. Completed in 1911, the factory’s office building set a new standard for 20th-century industrial architecture with steel and glass construction and tall unsupported windows at the corners of the building.

“Fagus” is Latin for “beech tree”, and shoemaking began with shoe lasts or moulds constructed from beech wood, which were sold and distributed around the world to other companies for the productions of shoes. In the 1920s, Benscheidt developed the turning precision-lathe speeding up production, prompting growth and expansion and elevating the company to world’s top producer of shoe lasts. Today, the building is still a working factory: Fagus creates plastic lasts milled by automated machinery to precise specifications for specific designs by shoe companies. Also on-site is GreCon which produces systems for fire-detection and fire-extinguishing in industrial settings. The Fagus factory building was recognized as “unique living monument” and inscribed by UNESCO as World Heritage Site (Welterbe) in 2011.

With a population of over 20-thousand people, Alfeld is located in the German federal state of Lower Saxony. The town’s reach by train is 30-minutes from Hannover or 40-minutes from Göttingen, after which is a short 5- to 10-minute walk from Alfeld(Leine)1 train station to the entrance of the Fagus/GreCon complex. Visitors can walk around the working factory site, stop at the World Heritage Site Visitor Centre, sit in the neighbouring café for coffee or tea, and visit the museum dedicated to the building’s origins, the building’s century-long history of shoe-making, and a general history of footwear.

Walter Gropius and others would move to Weimar to establish a centre of art, design, thought, and attitude for Bauhaus in 1919, eight years after inauguration of the Fagus-Werk.

Die Baukunst soll ein Spiegel des Lebens und der Zeit sein.
(Architecture should be a mirror to life and its time.)

– Walter Gropius.

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salt-making, Halloren- und Salinemuseum Halle, Halloren, Salinemuseum, Halle (Saale), Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, fotoeins.com

My Halle (Saale): Making White Gold Since 3000 BC

What do the following six towns and cities have in common?

  • Hall in Tirol, Austria
  • Hallein, Austria
  • Hallstatt, Austria
  • Schwäbisch Hall, Germany
  • Bad Reichenhall, Germany
  • Halle an der Saale, Germany

Hall, more than a large covered room

With “hall” in their names, all six towns listed above are historically associated with salt production1,2,3. The word “salt” is represented in Greek as hals and in Celtic (Brythonic) as hal. In pre-Roman Europe, the towns of Halle, Hallstatt, and Hallein were three centres for salt-evaporation4 which eventually became salt-making centres for the surrounding regions of Prussian Saxony, Salzkammergut, and Salzburg, respectively. Archaeological finds around Halle and along the Saale river5 uncovered evidence of heated brine (at Doläuer Heide) from the mid-neolithic age (about 3000 BCE) and briquetage ceramic vessels from the late-Bronze age (about 1000 BCE).

Mark Kurlansky wrote1: “… Salt is so common, so easy to obtain, and so inexpensive that we have forgotten that from the beginning of civilization until about 100 years ago, salt was one of the most sought after commodities in human history.”

Once a rarity, salt was a unique additive to improve quality of food preparation and consumption. Food preservation with salt also became a critical measure for survival, but also for improving the quality of food preparation and consumption. Whoever controlled salt production, sales, and distribution held power, wealth, and prestige.

German sayings with salt:

•   “Freundschaft ist des Lebens Salz.” (Friendship is the salt of life.)
•   “Das Essen ist versalzen, du bist verliebt.” (The food is too salty; you must be in love.)

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My Berlin: Bornholmer Strasse, first through the Wall

By today’s appearance, it’s easy to overlook the bridge at Bornholmer Strasse (also known as Bösebrücke) as an historic landmark. On the night of 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall opened here first, at the Bornholmer Strasse bridge border-crossing between East Berlin and West Berlin.

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Spinnerei, Leipzig, Sachsen, Saxony, Germany, fotoeins.com

Leipzig Spinnerei: from cotton mill to arts centre

The Leipzig Spinnerei is a former cotton mill (Baumwollspinnerei) in the western industrial suburb of Plagwitz. The massive site at an area of 10 hectares (over 1 million square feet) with rows of factory buildings began operation in 1884 and eventually became the largest cotton mill in Europe with thousands working and living on-site. After the site ceased to produce spools of cotton thread shortly after reunification, artists took advantage of the cheap empty space, and transformed the area into studios, galleries, and exhibition halls. Much has been written about the impact and examples of art and space on Leipzig as the “new Berlin” as well as the “New Leipzig School.” The site as art and culture space opened its doors in 2005.

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Haus Meissen, Meissener Porzellan, Staatliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Meissen, Meissen, Sachsen, Saxony, Germany, fotoeins.com

Meissen: centuries of porcelain-making tradition

In a present-age of speed, screens, and instant gratification, there are reasons to hold onto something tangible in your hands, something as simple as a cup, a plate, a bowl; all high-quality products made in the slow time-honoured way developed over centuries as an important local and, now national, cultural tradition.

First time porcelain production began in China going back at least 1000 years BCE with the subsequent centuries yielding hard durable highly-valued products in white, blue-and-white, and green. With European naval powers reaching Asia in the 16th and 17th-centuries, porcelain found new customers and high demand as “white gold” on par with gold and silver. Admiration and envy got many in Europe to thinking: all we need are some chalky deposits, some water, and some big hot ovens, and we’ll be rich … apart from chemistry, the correct firing or curing temperatures, experimentation, and skill. Until the early 18th-century all porcelain came from China, which is how the present-day phrase “(fine) china” arises.

The European debut to porcelain-making began in 1710 in Albrechtsburg castle in Meissen. When the big guy (who pays your wages or is holding you prisoner) says: “go ye therefore and make me some ‘gold'”, one tends to heed those orders. Frequently in need of funds, Augustus the Strong imprisoned and ordered the alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger to produce “gold”, but with mathematician and physicist Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus’ guidance, the two gentlemen did the next best thing and produced Europe’s first “white gold.” Porcelain manufacturing moved from the castle to the present location outside of Meissen’s old town in 1863.

We enter the Meissen Couture and its porcelain museum for a look behind the scenes. Why worry about modern techniques like 3-d printing when you’ve got motivated people willing to put in the hours; their hearts, minds, and souls into their craft? The basic creative instinct and personal touch live on in the town of Meissen in Germany’s Saxony.

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Zollverein Colliery, Essen, Ruhrgebiet, Germany, Deutschland, Welterbe Weltkulturerbe, UNESCO, World Heritage, fotoeins.com

Essen UNESCO WHS: Zollverein and Coal-Mining History

A desolate former coal-mining industrial region isn’t a usual candidate for a place to visit. However, the Zollverein coal mine in Essen, Germany provided the impetus to seek out aspects of industrial photography. There’s something special about the way light strikes metal which brings out various aspects of shape, form, and texture.

I’m beginning to understand the historical significance of coal-mining to the people and to the economy in the Ruhrgebiet (Ruhr river region). Over decades, a cloud of “grey” hung over the region, as air- and water-pollution took its toll, and the economic influence of coal began to diminish.

To mark its importance to the modern industrial development and history of the region, the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001. The entire refurbished complex now houses space for art, design, and cultural exhibitions, and is also home to the Ruhr Museum, shedding light on the industrial history of the Ruhrgebiet, providing historical accounts of the economic importance of coal mining and its consequent decline, as well as descriptions of existing and future economic redevelopment plans for the Ruhr region.

Essen was designated as one of three European Capital Cities of Culture for 2010; a number of projects, sites, and monuments throughout the Ruhrgebiet were on display, including the Zollverein.

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Spotlight on Essen’s coal belt

Zollverein RuhrMuseum Essen Germany

Ruhr Museum, Schacht XII, Kokskohlenbunker (Shaft 12, coal bunker), Zollverein Industrial Complex : Essen, Germany – 29 December 2010.

It easily figures that on the site of the Zollverein, the present Ruhr Museum shines a ‘spotlight’ to the industrial history of the Ruhrgebiet.

Along with Pécs (Hungary) and Istanbul (Turkey), the city of Essen in Germany was designated as one of three European Capital Cities of Culture for 2010. Various projects, sites, and monuments throughout the Ruhr region were on display for most of the year. One of the big highlights in Essen was the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex which has been listed as a UNESCO Heritage Site since 2001.

The entire refurbished complex now houses space for art, design, and cultural exhibitions, and is also home to the Ruhr Museum, which provides detailed historical accounts of the economic importance of coal mining and its consequent decline, as well as descriptions of existing and future economic redevelopment plans for the Ruhr region.

I made the photo above with the Canon EOS450D camera, EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens, and the following settings: 1/13s, f/1.4, ISO800, and no tripod. This post is published originally on Fotoeins Fotopress (fotoeins.com).

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