… since the group of photographers first visited in 2004.
(Photo: Martin Reindl)
When Werner Resch went out with his photo group in 2003 to stage the old Laim goods yard, he was impressed. “It was still there like it used to be,” recalls the 68-year-old. Tracks, signal box, switches, warehouses, the station building – everything is there. Even a red wagon was still on the trail. The team took pictures. Historical photos, because a little later the once important station, in which up to 2200 wagons were processed daily in 1990, was demolished.
Once a daily transhipment point for up to 2,200 wagons: the old Laim goods yard.
(Photo: Martin Reindl)
“It was fascinating because we knew we were photographing things that would be gone forever in two years.” In the meantime, there is a new building quarter with apartments at this point, which was immensely important for the development of Munich. Werner Resch is a professional photographer. 20 years ago he took over the management of a long-term project at the Munich adult education center with the aim of documenting the process of change in the 173-hectare area stretching over eight kilometers along the edges of the railway line between the main train station and Pasing – from a subjective point of view. The result is a special kind of city memory.
One that shows how an area that was previously a hodgepodge of allotment gardens, industrial plants, scrap dealers, thermal power stations, railway facilities and wasteland was successively transformed over the course of almost a quarter of a century into residential areas, office towers, green and leisure facilities, into consumption and entertainment temples . The fact that the redesign of this last large inner-city area “actually brought a piece of railway history to an end”, as Resch puts it, is revealed in the exhibition “Axis in Transition”, which can currently be seen in the Pasinger factory.
In 2004, the view from the Friedenheimer Bridge in western direction mainly showed flat land…
(Photo: Werner Resch)
… and 18 years later the development on Birketweg.
(Photo: Werner Resch)
In the café and in three exhibition rooms there are 400 of the approximately 10,000 pictures that the photographers of the adult education center project have shot over the past two decades. The entire development can be seen from a bird’s eye view. Photographer Martin Reindl sat in the zeppelin when he took aerial photos of the entire route: the picture from 2004 shows a lot of fallow land and some plots of land that are already under construction. 18 years later, in July 2022, the construction sites have disappeared, with the exception of the new development area on Paul-Gerhardt-Allee in Pasing. Instead, there are new settlements, the central bus station (ZOB) on Arnulfstraße and the arcades in Pasing. The depot for the construction of the second trunk line can be seen north of the Donnersberger Bridge. And now there is the Arnulfsteg, which was pushed piece by piece over the railway tracks while the train was running. Documented in detail in pictures by Josef Stöger.
A hydrant alone far away in 2004 can be classified to some extent based on the towers in the background.
(Photo: Werner Resch)
In 2021, the Quartier am Arnulfpark will be located there.
(Photo: Werner Resch)
The exhibition shows before and after scenarios – a closed track in 2007, where cars, buses, trucks and motorcycles are now driving on Pasing’s northern bypass, the NUP. The view from the Friedenheimer Bridge towards the west, in 2004 still dilapidated wooden planks in the midst of overgrown greenery, today shows the Birketweg residential area. Landmarks such as the steel Hacker Bridge or the red, high-rising chimney of the former combined heat and power plant on the Donnersbergerbrücke, now the location of the event Mecca “Freiheiz”, help with orientation.
Plenty of gravel in front of the door: the parcel post hall, pictured in 2003.
(Photo: Werner Resch)
The parcel post hall, which went into operation in 1969 on the site of the former postal station, can still be seen in close-up in the Pasinger factory with a gravel surface all around, is such a recognition point. The photo also shows how rapidly and in stages the transformation of a formerly open, wide axis into narrow, high street canyons with space for 17,200 residents and 21,300 jobs took place, and how the image of the railway as a growth engine was modified -Team around Werner Resch documented.
Scrap cars – in 2003 still a typical sight on the main railway station – Laim – Pasing axis.
(Photo: Verena Reindl)
Today there are the striking towers of the “Friends”.
(Photo: Werner Resch)
The old train wash was located in what later became the new Birketweg district, only around 200 meters from the ICE wash, which is now positioned between the tracks.
(Photo: Wolfgang Schmitz)
You can see junkyards and interim uses in the form of art projects in the same place where the “Friends” residential towers now dominate the scenery at the Hirschgarten S-Bahn station. It becomes clear how far the excavation pit for the new Pasing arcades reached: to the outbuilding of the Bürklein train station, which was built in 1848 and is now used as a café. A photo taken by Wolfgang Schmitz in 2006 shows the old train wash. It was located in what later became the new Birketweg district, only around 200 meters from the ICE car wash, which is now positioned between the tracks. Accompanying this development, “the constant new perspectives,” says Resch, “was the exciting thing about the project”.
The exhibition with works by Alfred Braun, Anne Menke Schwinghammer, Martin Reindl, Verena Reindl, Werner Resch, Wolfgang Schmitz, Detlev Schünke, Josef Stöger and Reinhold Wilke, for which there is also a book published by Franz-Schiermeier-Verlag, is still on to January 29, 2023, Tuesday to Sunday from 4 to 8 p.m. in the Pasinger Fabrik at August-Exter-Straße 1. Admission four, reduced two euros. A panel discussion at the invitation of the Munich Adult Education Center will take place on Saturday, January 21, at 2 p.m. in the Pasinger Fabrik, August-Exter-Straße 1. Admission is free. The complete accompanying program for the exhibition can be found on the website of the Pasing factory.