Exhibition “Example is Everything"

Hagen crafts and trade

Hairdressers (Haus der Schönheit), the shops next door (Koma-Läden) or the shoe store Flüs are signs of yesterdays crafts and trade in Hagen.

In some buildings, you can find origin services, like the food store at Bülowstreet.

From the cinema Odeon at Schwerterstraße pedestrians won’t find any remains, rather than hidden from the ugliness of the following functional buildings.

So the pictures showing places from the perspective of a pedestrian, where crafts and trade were established in Hagen.

Many thanks to the Hagener Heimatbund, for the Hagen Book 2017, that build the basis for the research.

Hagen, the city of education

If one searches for the synonyms for education, training, and scholarship are listed. In the same breath, however, creation, origin, development, as well as shaping and design, are also mentioned.

As one of the pillars of education in Hagen, the building complex of the Fernuniversität Hagen unites all synonyms under one roof by providing an architecturally remarkable stage for outstanding education within the city limits of Hagen through shaping and design.

Here, the architecture reflects the most diverse facets of education, which are reflected in the various images:

• Education unites the most diverse topics under one roof.
• Education never runs in a straight line, it is similar to climbing a spiral staircase but offers different ways of
  getting on.

Air pollution control

The car traffic in the city centre of Hagen has increased considerably. The reasons for this are manifold and have been occupying the city fathers for many years. Especially the Märkischer Ring and the Bergischer Ring are heavily burdened, also and especially by the through traffic.

The effects on air quality are serious. In the so-called “Finanzamtschlucht” (on the four-lane Märkischer Ring), a speed limit of 30 on a few hundred metres has recently been introduced.

This is intended to reduce nitrogen dioxide pollution in order to avoid driving bans for diesel drivers. The long-awaited railway station bypass of the city of Hagen is to be open to traffic from the end of the year after seven years of construction. It is hoped that this will lead to a significant reduction in traffic in Wehringhausen and on the Graf-von-Galen-Ring. In addition, the 65 million investment is intended to help prevent the limit values of the Clean Air Plan from being exceeded.

Both measures of the city of Hagen serve to improve air quality and are to be evaluated positively in the sense of “example is everything”. Further measures in the fight to reduce pollutants must follow.

City of litter

How good that HEB (Hagener Entsorgungsbetriebe) with its waste incineration plant is located in Hagen.

Unfortunately, some citizens seem to be completely indifferent to where they put their dirt and garbage.

From dog excrement on the sidewalk to shopping trolleys in the Volme, there is hardly a place that is not “beautified” in this way.

Hagen is upside down

I often feel this way when reading the daily newspaper or the news on the Internet.

It’s about financial gaps in the budget of the city of Hagen, about the preparations for a theatre performance or about the cultural scene standing on its head when it comes to the possible sale of municipal cultural assets.

I can well imagine that many a “Hagener” has the feeling that he is standing on his head.

The kiosk - the drinking hall, the booth

is for many people in the Ruhr area a place of social communication, of small purchases of newspapers, tobacco products, drinks, sweets or even a small snack.

...go to the kiosk,  get some cigarettes, drink pilsken (beer) and have a chat….. best describes this philosophy.

It is nice that there are still many of these institutions in Hagen, but it is a pity that some of them have to give up.

Hagen - city of bridges

Bridges have always fascinated me.

If one comes as a visitor with the car into the city centre from Hagen, one automatically drives over the Altenhagener High bridge. As part of the B 54 it leads, among other things, to the striking high-rise building of the Agentur für Arbeit and the River Volme.

Their construction ensures that the through traffic flows better and it is on the under its located intersection to less traffic is coming. Bridges connect people and places. In the field of Hochbrücke, however, cuts through a district of the city. The View of the residents from the adjacent residential buildings is very limited.

Besides, the entire cityscape is impaired, since the view of the adjacent development is partly not guaranteed. Like a foreign body the steel structure squeezes itself and concrete between the rows of houses, this is also changed the colourful painting nothing.

The Altenhagener Hochbrücke is a good example of this, that urban development solutions not only have advantages, but also can also have disadvantages.

Hagen – Stadt der Industrie in Wandel

Von ursprünglich Kleinindustrie in Seitentälern über das Hüttenwerk in Hagen Haspe hat sich das Spektrum der Industrie im Laufe der Jahrzehnte sehr verändert.

Eine der letzten großen Betriebsschließungen war „Zwieback Brand“.

Das Foto dokumentiert die Umgestaltung des Geländes stellvertretend für den Wandel der Industrie in der Stadt.

Neue, umweltfreundliche Industrien sowie die Fernuniversität haben sich angesiedelt.

Parking

In some streets parking in Hagen is no fun. Impatient manoeuvring, loud honking, wild gestures that are supposed to serve as movements of interpersonal communication make life super hard in the end.

The parking spaces without limits are highly sought-after objects, but scarce.

If, then after many rounds, you get the benefit of a parking space, you should be checked as a precaution whether a ticket has to be taken here and now. Finding a parking space in Hagen is/can be a life task.

I am searching right now.