Wenn Gesinnung Form wird
Eine Essaysammlung zur Nachkriegsarchitektur der BRD
Arne Schmitt/Inka Schube

In 2010 the photographer Arne Schmitt traveled with his camera through the western states of Germany that constituted West Germany before reunification and documented the places that were destroyed by bombs during the war and replaced after 1945. His black-and-white photographs objectively reveal the current state of architectural designs built after the war by a generation of architects who had learned their craft prior to 1933. Loyalty and pragmatism paired with an apolitical attitude toward state clients marked their work. When the war ended, they had already had finished plans in their desk drawers for the construction the cities of tomorrow. Arne Schmitt has produced an impressive photographic documentation of the legacies of this generation of architects. His photographs open up a new perspective on postwar modernism in West Germany and the conflicting intellectual currents that coexisted there.