High times

With his project Silver Tower, Matthias Hoch (1958) documents the poignant transition of a legendary building in Frankfurt-am-Main throughout the period from 2009 to 2011. When the 166 metre-high tower opened as the Dresdner Bank Head Quarters in 1978, it was the tallest building in Germany. Following the advent of the Financial Crisis in 2008, and the bank's takeover by Commerzbank in 2009, the building was no longer required – and was vacated.

"This was when I first began to explore the visual concept of abandonment", Matthias Hoch explains. "I was looking for the remainders of an era, for the biography of this physical space. I wanted to capture the indications of how the empty rooms had once been used – the imprints, the scars, the different facets."

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue featuring the complete series of 45 photographs, as well as texts by Harald Kunde, Andreas Maier, Markus Weisbeck. Silver Tower was published by Harald Kunde, Museum Kurhaus Kleve, ISBN 978-3-944669-01-4, Leipzig: Spector Books, 2013. Available in English and German.

For further information visit SGW