bird flying high at the former finance ministry in wiesbaden.
after our vacation in the vosges mountains i was returning back to germany and wiesbaden to warmer temperatures and a little more advanced spring season. since i still love to walk through this city from time to time to check on my favourite parts of it, i did that pretty soon after i returned. sometimes i discover things that i previously overlooked or that i found a new appreciation for and also like to check whether anything changed, as a city is always bound to have all kinds of changes, right? a new building gets finished, someone made a new mural somewhere, new interesting shops got opened, you know the drill. there's always something to discover, and if not, than at least something old to appreciate again. or to find new perspectives that lead to a different approach of capturing them. i don't understand people who are bored with their city, especially if it's one that has over 200.000 inhabitants. cities of this size always have something going on, and when you revisit a place half a year later it will definitely have a different vibe ( i mean, the seasons change the environment anyway, even if the structures stay the same. ) i think i could never get tired of even bigger cities, because within these megacities there exist several districts that often feel like they are a city within a city. like berlin, or london, or paris, they are so big that every single one of their districts are actually smaller cities on their own. and to explore them more thoroughly means that you still won't see every crevice and street there is, as they are still too big to consume in one day. when you start in one area, and return to that area a year later, somehing is bound to have happened, that's a guarantee. trees grew bigger, a house got destroyed and rebuilt, another house sits abandoned. your own interests maybe are not focussed on that one thing anymore that you were obsessing over a year ago, which also informs how you will look at that area. there's rarely a thing that continues to stay the same, even the smallest villages are not exempt from it. i have to say, over the years i've grown quite fond of change. change makes our lives more interesting, because we need to find ways to adapt to them. it might be small changes, it might be big, life-shattering ones, but to stay in one place and not have anything changed for better or for worse would probably mean you are giving up on the zest of life. change keeps us going.
i don't know how i got from talking about cities to talking about the meaning of life, but here we are and here i stop. let's walk through wiesbaden again and see what it had to offer to me one day in the middle of march in 2019.
this building is called 'questum' and it's been a finance ministry in the past, though it is not anymore. these days the hessian department of logistics & social affairs resides in this mid-century structure. it was build from 1952 to 1954 by the architects adolph möreke & reinhold hoffmann. it's one of those buildings that i really would like to see from within one day, because it has a really neat staircase and other cute elements typical for mid-century architecture. the bird installation on the first picture of this post is one of those elements, and i wonder if there is anything remotely like it inside the building as well. mid-century architecture and art is still a favourite thing of mine, the whole appearance is so visually pleasing to me. the bird was designed by martin freyer and is officially called 'vogel phönix' ( bird phoenix ). martin freyer designed the volkswagen logo as well! which is a fact i found super interesting.
reflections in the windows of the questum building. it is quite common in wiesbaden that, right next to a minimalist and functional building, you will find wilhelminian villas. here you can also see, upon closer inspection, the winding staircase. here's actually a link with a few ( better ) pictures of this building, mine really don't do it a lot of justice.
there's an instagram account called ofeneck i follow that often posts old cars standing around in stylish neighborhoods. the guy who spots these gems also has a great interest in mid-century/modern architecture and i find his posts quite pleasing and always interesting. he's blogging from berlin, which is why you see a lot of berlin neighorhoods in his feed, but sometimes he also does international shots. in support of his vintage car meets really cool neighborhoods obsession i decided to shoot a wiesbaden version as well. i don't have a lot of clue about cars, so i can't tell you the exact model of the car, but i can assure you that this one is a mercedes... old mercedes cars are very distinct in nature, i could spot them from afar. the villa in the back is one from 1892 and got built by christian dähne. maybe i will try to continue this little car venture for wiesbaden, i find the idea very intriguing!
the old american arms hotel before it was torn down completely ( they are building a new residential area here, not sure how far they are, should probably check on that in the future ^^ ). this hotel was built for employess of the american army after the second world war ended. it stood empty for quite a while, but was given a last purpose when the refugee crisis started in 2015. the city used it as an accommodation for them until early 2019. the building itself was nothing special, purely a functional one. the only cool thing about it was that from bird's eye view it looked like there were two mines connected to each other 😂
right next to the plot where the hotel stood is this beautiful building! it's the side view of the obermayer business school ( formerly hotel nizza from 1903 by emil schott ). i really love the canopied veranda facade, it gives off such an old-timey art nouveau feeling.
the front facade is pretty majestic, too. the building is not an art nouveau building through and through, actually more a neo-renaissance one.
oh, how i love them white spring blossoms!
a better view of the veranda side of the building. also noteworthy is the gable with the green lattice.
on to more modern dwellings. it's a shame i wasn't able to properly take a good photo of this white-blossoming tree in front of this brickstone building. i thought they were such a good fit!
but white on white surely is not a good idea in photographic realms. i don't know what kind of trees these were, my guess is always cherry trees, but to be honest... wtf do i know? cherry trees can come in so many varieties, how can i be able to say which one is which? maybe these were entirely different trees anyway? some do have similar blossoms.
loved the contrast to the almost black-looking twigs and branches.
a tiny fragment of a stucco cherub group on the facade of an 1860 house.
they were so chubby and cute! i like when people incorporate old elements into modernized architecture. this house is very old, but definitely not in its state of origin anymore. who knows how it looked like when it was still intact. these three dudes were probably involved in the original plan in some way and got destroyed during the world wars and then somebody thought, well, these are too precious to let them end in the forgotten cherub heaven, let's take them and attach them back to the facade.
along the way i didn't want to miss out on the flower magic everywhere ;) some white precious primroses for y'all!
and very early tulips and some croci and pansies!
hello mysterious soft pink blossoms! i think they are belonging to a japanese variety of cherry tree, my research brought me to prunus incisa ( which is also called kojo-no-mai cherry ).
discovered this pretty lady very randomly. doesn't she look kinda alien with here strangely patterned hair?
when the willows develop fresh green hair, that's always such a wonderful sight that fills me with joy. i mean, i don't know any other tree that produces such a rich, almost yellow green! so pretty!
delicious smelling viburnum blossoms.
i cannot, for the life of me, remember where i found this statue. thus the creator stays anonymous! i liked the rough way she was designed in.
finally made it to the kurpark where some daffodils greeted me.
long shadows and still bare trees. the kurpark with its many old trees is always worth a visit, even though i sometimes wish there were more flower beds and bushes around.
in the far back you can see the kurhaus ( spa hotel ) with its distinct dome.
under the magnolia trees a lot of scillas were gathering for a spring celebration.
they are such fragile little beings.
entering the warmer damm park the workshop of the hessian state theatre welcomes you. it creates a stark contrast to the regal theatre with its steel frame structure and the terne plates cladding. it was build from 1975 to 1978.
a look over towards the aareal bank building and the theatre parking garage. the aareal bank is from the 50ies, too ( 1953 - 1955 by alexander von branca & wilhelm wichtendahl ) and another one of those listed post war modern buildings that i care so much about. i will probably introduce this building to you at one moment in time, by now i should have a few more pictures of it.
can't ever get enough of those scilla gatherings. 🌸
wilhelmstraße scenery. the wilhelmstraße is wiesbaden's equivalent to berlin's kurfürstendamm, though at a much smaller and less expensive scale. it's got really swanky city houses and knubbly plane trees and lots and lots of scillas ( in the spring ). and it got a real fancy name from the citizens of wi-town: it's the 'rue' ( french for street ).
isn't it curious how scillas only seem to appear around trees? i wonder why that is? maybe because the roots of trees are natural water savers?
one of my favourite fountains in wiesbaden is the one that stands in front of the kunstverein building. it's called 'burschen mit prägnanten schwangerschaftsstreifen' ( fellows with succinct stretch marks ) and was created by marcel schiele who is a proponent of the fluxus art movement. fluxus is a really wild and absolutely nonsensical art from ( in my opinion ), but it generates pretty interesting art pieces nonetheless, pieces that turn something inside out. the fluorescent yellow/green water is pretty much amazing and i also like the concrete crystals quite a lot.
next up: a walk through the richard neutra settlement in mörfelden-walldorf!
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