Silver Tower, 2009-11
The Dresdner Bank highrise, inaugurated as company headquarters in 1978, was regarded “with its shimmering silver aluminum facade and rounded corners everywhere, as the embodiment of an architecturally and economically prospering Modernism, and is still today a significant landmark on Frankfurt’s skyline.” 1 The tower was designed by the architecture studio ABB Scheid und Partner, while the corporate design elements were conceived by Otl Aicher. When the 166-meter highrise opened, it was the tallest building in Germany, and one of the most modern. Its 32 floors became “vertically stacked work islands” 2 for some 2,200 employees.
After Dresdner Bank was taken over by Commerzbank in 2009, the headquarters building was no longer needed and was therefore vacated. “During this phase, I began a visual investigation of the empty building, searching for signs and legacies of an era, for the biography of this place. I hoped that the deserted rooms would reveal to the camera traces of their use: scars, impressions, layers.” (MH) The work transforms these traces and functionless remains into photographic images. It makes the story of the “evisceration of a giant” 1 tangible to the viewer, examining the process of disappearance and providing glimpses of an otherwise closed system, one that has been given up and is no longer needed.
1 Harald Kunde, Silver Tower, project sketch for a publication, 2011.
2 Markus Weisbeck, “Operation Vertrauenspartner – im Wohnzimmer der Großbank,” in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 December 2009, p. 32.
This project was made possible by a three-month work grant from the Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen (Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony). Exhibitions: Matthias Hoch, Silver Tower, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm 2010; Museum Kurhaus Kleve, 2013; Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg and Kunstmuseum Magdeburg, 2014; Galerie Jochen Hempel, Leipzig, 2015. Publication: Matthias Hoch, Silver Tower. Spector Books, Leipzig 2013.
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