Innovations made of Concrete and Steel. Industrial Photographs in Saxony from the 1920s

Studio exhibition 5th February – 24th May 2020                          
Opening: 4th February 2020, 18:00
Böttchergäßchen Building, Böttchergäßchen 3, 04109 Leipzig

The construction boom in Saxony in the 1920s resulted in countless orders for the Leipzig concrete construction firm Max Gotthilf Richter. Some of the construction projects from this era were comprehensively documented by the Hermann Walter photo studio. Here, the German new style of building (“neues Bauen”) was reflected in numerous new industrial buildings. The vision for new buildings during that era was not only architectural sophistication ensured by the new structural possibilities of reinforced concrete, but, moreover, air and light were to improve working conditions, ultimately, leading to higher labour productivity.

In November 2017, Max Gotthilf Richter’s grandson provided the company portfolio of his grandfather’s construction company to the Museum of City History. The photographs from this portfolio are now shown for the first time in the studio exhibition. They were taken by the Hermann Walter photo studio for advertising purposes for the Leipzig reinforced concrete firm of Max Gotthilf Richter from 1912 to 1934 and, as a result, these images capture the architectural transformation of Leipzig and Saxony into a modern industrial centre. With photographs of building shells, works and interior photographs of production halls, they impressively show how large-scale construction projects were implemented around 100 years ago. 

The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication.