Andreas Gehrke
Der Spiegel / IBM / Quelle
Four books / numerous images
16.5 × 21.5 cm
Edition of 25, numbered
Design: Katrin Oeding, Andreas Gehrke
Box set
Special collector's edition box set including:
Der Spiegel / IBM Campus / Quelle Versand and four signed and numbered archival pigment prints (15 × 19 cm)
Andreas Gehrke takes a dispassionate look at vacated headquarters with his powerful narrative series on dormant modernist buildings. The three-part series captures the deserted tower blocks that formerly housed Der Spiegel, Germany’s renowned organ of investigative journalism, the old IBM Germany offices in Vaihingen, Stuttgart and the HQ of the now-defunct mail order firm Quelle in Nuremberg.
Formerly home to business enterprises that played a significant role in shaping the economic, cultural and political landscape of postwar Germany, these buildings are also notable examples of German modernist architecture. In a fragile state of limbo—released from their previous roles and now bereft of purpose, they remain charged with the real or imagined memories of an era in recent German history, the traces of which we involuntarily seem to find in Gehrke’s stark images.
Der Spiegel, 1963–2011, Hamburg, Brandstwiete is the first of two volumes featuring the former office of the Hamburg news magazine, Der Spiegel. The Brandstwiete tower block in Hamburg by architect Werner Kallmorgen was home to the magazine from 1969 to 2011. Der Spiegel, 1995–2011, Hamburg, Dovenfleet is the second of two volumes featuring the Dovenfleet tower block. Designed by architect Werner Kallmorgen and built in 1967, it was home to the US technology and consulting giant IBM for 28 years before the Spiegel publishing group moved in from 1995 to 2011.
IBM Campus, 1972–2009, Stuttgart-Vaihingen documents the former IBM campus complex near Stuttgart. Designed by Germany’s most celebrated post-war modernist architect Egon Eiermann, it served as the home to the German offices of the US technology and consulting giant from 1972 to 2009.
Quelle Versand, 1956–2009, Nürnberg exhibits the derelict premises of what used to be Germany’s biggest mail order catalogue company and one of the largest department store chains. The purposebuilt building by former Bauhaus student Ernst Neufert was Quelle’s mail order HQ from 1956
until the company’s insolvency in 2009.
