Browse through your travel destination!
In 2013 the German states of Saxony and Thuringia are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the architect and designer Henry van de Velde. For this reason, exhibitions take place in cities like Weimar, Jena, Erfurt, Gera, Apolda, Bürgel, and Chemnitz.
Have a look inside the municipal library (Stadtbibliothek) of Stuttgart. The library situated at the Mailänder Platz was planned by the Korean architect Eun Young Yi. I especially love the patterns of all these books inside the library.
A maypole in the town square of Schorndorf. The signs placed at the maypole represents different industries working in the city. Are there similar maypoles in your region?
On my way to the birthplace of Gottlieb Daimler in Schorndorf, I came across this beautiful floral decoration.
The landmark of Dortmund is the big U on top of a former brewery building. Today the building houses besides others the Museum Ostwall and some exhibition rooms. The elements looking like mosaics are actually movies shown high over the city.
A detail I was especially impressed in. At the coking plant Hansa I saw a pithead bath. In this hall the workers put their clothes in special frameworks. Each framework is movable up and down by a chain.
Kokerei Hansa is a former coking plant in Dortmund. Today the plant houses a huge climbing gym named Kletterhalle Bergwerk and the remaining installations can be visited by guided tours.
In earlier times German miners used to have a small garden for vegetable and animals behind their homes. While strolling around a mining settlement next to the colliery Zeche Zollern I came across this special breed of chickens. In German they are called Sundheimer.
The Ruhrtriennale is an annual music and arts festival in the Ruhr area of Germany. The locations of the Ruhrtriennale are generally industrial heritage sites like the Jahrhunderthalle in Bochum, the Zeche Zollverein or the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord.
The Jahrhunderthalle is a venue for such famous events like the Ruhrtriennale. Interesting detail: The hall was constructed on top of an existing plant. After that, the soil was risen up to the level of the hall. So the first plant became part of the basement.
Every year another interesting art project takes place at the Gasometer (a former gas holder) in Oberhausen. In 2013 I visited the ‘Big Air Package’ created by Christo. This time the artist, who is generally known for wrapping huge things, produced a kind of balloon filling the inside of the gas holder.
On my night stroll through the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, an industrial heritage park in Ruhr area, I came across this torpedo car. These cars are used for hauling molten pig iron from the blast furnace to the next processing unit.