Autobahn

The Autobahn is an asphalt carpet thirteen thousand kilometers in length that covers all of Germany, both interfering with the landscape and interconnecting the country. Jörg Brüggemann photographed it for five years, from 2015 to 2019. While mobility concepts are constantly changing and being discussed, the Autobahn has remained the same in its form- but for how much longer? Brüggemann’s pictures might soon be seen as historical documents. The highway is probably Germany’s most monumental built structure and an integral part of its cultural identity and history. Designed in the 1920s and its first segments constructed under the Nazis, it was given a musical tribute by Kraftwerk in 1974. The Autobahn stands for the unconditional belief in the future of the postwar period, German engineering, driving without speed limits, but also for traffic jams, lineups of trucks, and multivehicle accidents. Brüggemann shares his fascination and doubts through his pictures. They pose questions about the present and future of mobility. How appropriate and sustainable is this gigantic infrastructure today, where unlimited growth and individual freedom on the one hand and ecology and public interest on the other hand meet in visible contradiction every day?