City Explo[it | r]ation – Nürnberg Maxfeld

Last week I met with Sugar Ray Banister to do some city exploration in Nürnberg as part of my documentation project before I leave Nürnberg for good (clock is tickin’) – stay tuned for a separate feature on Sugar Ray Banister and his work. The main aim was to document the before and after of gentrification in the Maxfeld area in Nürnberg. In particular, Nürnberg is very much concerned about its image as a nice and beautiful city with its castle as one of the central cornerstone in its presentation. But in the end, the city is ugly – not because of the places that one might consider ugly but because of these half-hearted tries to “fix” it and make it a better place. So we browsed through the Maxfeld area and found some pretty amazing sights.

Here are some shots from our exploration discovering and depicting the contrasts and conflicts in Maxfeld (and Nürnberg in general). At this point in time this transition is creating a very dynamic and vivid tension. What you will realize is that in almost all shots you will find satellite dishes. This is mainly because the whole area is full with those ones.

The next one shows one of the key characteristics of Nürnberg. Very empty windows. If you are lucky you will find some simple curtains. But that’s basically it. Apart from that, everything looks pretty “rectangle”.

One of my favorite ones. A long strip of garages – purely functional storage space aligned in perfect order. German efficiency I guess…

While walking through Maxfeld we found many houses of an almost identical architecture: a big block, cramming people together with small balconies.

Here is another one of those blocks. Simple post-war architecture with balconies, convenient replacements for gardens, and satellite dishes that ensure optimal supply with digi-soma.

Below a few more shots for your perusal all taken in Maxfeld. We also went to the old Tucher Bräuerei area (a traditional brewery whose buildings have been demolished).