Ulrich Deimel Petra Wittmar: "Jene zwanziger Jahre". Fotografien zur Architektur im Rheinland und in Westfalen: Those Twenties - Photography of Architecture in Rhine Westphalia

The two Essen-based photographers Petra Wittmar and Ulrich Deimel have been considered top league German architecture photographers at least since their participation in the Venice Architecture Biennale in 1996. Their latest chosen task has been a documentary photographic presentation of the quite remarkable architecture from the period between the wars in North-Rhine Westphalia. Important master builders such as Dominikus B hm, Fritz Schupp, Peter Behrens or Bruno Paul created formidable structures in the Rhine-Ruhr area. The mine building Zollverein by Schupp/Kremer at Essen can hardly be matched for its functionalist austerity and aesthetic homogeneity, the elegance of the Disch house by Bruno Paul in Cologne has set standards. And yet, the photographers also discovered and paid tribute to quite a number of "unknown" master pieces, presenting an assembly of fascinating portraits of architecture from this era, with characteristic and often surprising details.