The East German town of Hoyerswerda, with its ten huge complexes of prefabricated slab-construction housing, was once the GDR’s showcase metropolis, exemplifying the socialist model of a modern, progressive city.
In today’s Germany Hoyerswerda has become a symbol of radical social and urban-developmental changes. Once the GDR town with the largest number of children, Hoyerswerda has become the fastest-shrinking city in Germany. As a result, the city has experienced fundamental alterations and de-urbanisation. The photographs by Stefan Boness provide not only an intimate portrait of this post-socialist urban landscape. They also serve as a symbol for the radical social transformations at the beginning of the twenty-first century that can be observed across many regions of Europe and the United States of America.
