After the Plan (Stadt am Werk)

'After the Plan' focuses on the three planned cities of Eisenhüttenstadt, Hoyerswerda & Halle-Neustadt. Caught between built utopia, the demolition of existing structures, former ideals, challenges of structural change, depopulation, and reorientation.

Throughout history, the planning and construction of entirely new cities from scratch has occurred time and again. In the modern era, new planned cities have primarily been developed to serve industry, to relieve growing metropolitan areas, and to establish new representative capitals. They reflect the political, economic, and social ideas of their time. In the twentieth century, large-scale industry became the driving force behind the planning and construction of new cities.

'After the Plan' (Stadt am Werk) examines three socialist planned cities in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR): Eisenhüttenstadt, Hoyerswerda, and Halle-Neustadt. Conceived as modern residential cities for workers in the steel, chemical, and coal industries, they embodied the GDR’s visions of the future. Today, these cities find themselves caught between built utopias, the demolition of existing structures, former ideals, and the challenges of structural change, emigration, and reorientation.

Eisenhüttenstadt
Formerly known as Stalinstadt, Eisenhüttenstadt was established as a socialist planned city in 1950. It was conceived as a utopian residential city for the Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost (EKO), an integrated steelworks. The steelworks remains the city’s largest employer. Since 1990, Eisenhüttenstadt’s population has fallen by more than half, from 53,000 to 24,000.

Hoyerswerda
Once a thriving industrial centre for the coal and energy industries in Lusatia, Hoyerswerda grew rapidly during the 1950s and 1960s to accommodate workers at the Schwarze Pumpe lignite-fired power plant. Following the partial shutdown and restructuring of industry after 1990, Hoyerswerda lost more than half of its population, declining from 71,000 to approximately 30,000. Once known as the city with the highest proportion of children in the GDR, Hoyerswerda is now grappling with demographic change and an ageing population.

Halle-Neustadt
Halle-Neustadt was established in the 1960s as the “City of Chemical Workers” for employees of the Buna and Leuna chemical plants. Its large-scale residential complexes developed into the largest new housing development in the GDR, with a population of around 90,000. Following the closure of large sections of the chemical combines and the mass layoffs that followed German reunification, many residents left the city. Today, Halle-Neustadt, commonly known as “Ha-Neu,” has just under 45,000 inhabitants, and its population continues to decline.

The steel, chemical, and coal industries that shaped these cities’ mono-industrial economies once represented a future defined by progress and productivity. They continue to play a central role in local identity. However, industrial transformation, the migration it triggered, and demographic change have led to a dramatic decline in these cities’ populations—a process that is still ongoing. Residential buildings and public infrastructure stand empty, fall into disrepair, or are demolished. Past and future exist side by side.
The material and visual legacies of socialist urban planning are documented and placed in relation to the transformation processes that have unfolded since 1990. Urban spaces and architectural details are juxtaposed with industrial sites, their characteristic materials, and portraits of the cities’ residents.

This reveals how political systems and economic upheavals leave lasting imprints not only on societies but also on urban spaces—and how these imprints continue to shape everyday life, architecture, and collective memory. The project explores unresolved questions about the future, historical legacies, and the reimagining of urban utopias.

What happens to a city and its society when the industry that defines it loses importance, contracts, or disappears altogether? How do demographic change and emigration become visible in urban spaces and the surrounding landscape? How do the ideologies of the past find their way into the present?