André Kirchner – Stadtrand Berlin

When photographer André Kirchner created his series “Berlin: The City’s Edge” between 1993 and 1994, he captured traces of recent history in the surrounding state of Brandenburg, in particular the turbulent changes underway four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

His geographical starting-point was the former border check-point at Drewitz. Within a year Kirchner had worked his way anti-clockwise to Glienicker Bridge near Potsdam. These 60 shots construct a view of the boundary of Greater Berlin as defined in 1920, after the city absorbed several outlying communities. That 234-kilometre edge corresponds more or less to Berlin’s current footprint. André Kirchner turns his panoramic lens each time from the hinterland towards the city, and these images record the broad open landscapes along the urban periphery. We see not only vestiges of civilisation from the past 150 years but also symptoms of social transition.

André Kirchner chose the panorama, a format with narrative potential, in response to the universal curiosity and excitement about that period of political, social and cultural upheaval. In terms of both its thematic intention and its aesthetic implementation, “The City’s Edge” invites arrangement as a 360° spectacle. The presentation is reminiscent, if remotely, of the 19th-century pursuit of panorama paintings and dioramas.