European Industrial City from Height, 1950s–1960s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

European Industrial City from Height, 1950s–1960s — Archive & Atlas

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European Industrial City from Height, 1950s–1960s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1965

AA-2026-CE33A0

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A photographer from a high vantage point—a tall building or aircraft—has aimed downward at a sprawling European industrial city at the moment of confident postwar expansion. Row after row of factory buildings with characteristic sawtooth roofs line geometric streets; a river or canal cuts through the urban grid in the middle distance, and behind it the cityscape stretches toward a hazy horizon where the buildings fade into smog. This is the industrial heartland of Northern Europe during the years when manufacturing was still the reliable answer to employment and prosperity, before anyone asked whether a city built entirely for production had much else going for it. The color saturation and cloud cover suggest mid-century color film, the kind of documentation a planner or architect might commission to prove the scale and order of what had been rebuilt. Nothing in this view suggests anything will change; the photographer's altitude grants the illusion of permanence that only comes from looking down on something too large to imagine any other way.

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