Grunge, Germany

Germany is not just shining BMWs and Mercedes screaming down Autobahns. There are broken down, unloved areas. Areas which we would mostly not photograph. These are things which a tourist’s eye would slide over, unseeing. Or there are things which are pushed out to places where people would not have to look at all the time. I love looking at such grunge. What a country does not love sometimes tells us as much as what it does.

Back road near Hannover

Schillerstrasse, Bielefeld

Boesebruecke, Berlin

Prenzlauerberg, Berlin

Railway station, Duisburg

Friedrichstrasse, Berlin

Bus stop

Urban renewal near the Spree, Berlin

I see lots of photos of sunlight on cracked plaster or weathered wood from southern Europe, but little of these dreary but atmospheric places in Germany. I wonder whether there is a new genre waiting to become a meme. Click on the mosaic above to get to an annotated slide show.