About Briefly Historic:
“Briefly Historic” articles are short posts that have either or would have been posted on our social media accounts (such as twitter / bluesky) as threads. They are brief and interesting tales of historic buildings, places, and encounters. Rather than them being posted just on social media and then vanishing into obscurity, we’ve decided to give them a permanent home on the website.
Brandenburg an der Havel was once a regional industrial powerhouse. With its strategic location next to the Havel and the Silokanal, as well excellent rail connections – it attracted immigrants as well as industries from all over the Reich. The city boomed with Steel, Metal, and Textile works, as well as attracting aircraft and truck manufacturers in the early 1930s.
With the end of the second world war, Brandenburg an der Havel fell into the soviet occupation zone, and was rapidly deindusztrialized – its steelworks (amongst many other industrial sites) was completely demolished and shipped to the Soviet Union as reparations. With the founding of the German Democratic Republic, the decision was made to rebuild the Rolling and Steel Mills, and making Brandenburg a heavy industry city again.
State funded public art had a long tradition in Germany – predating the establishment of the GDR by about 30 years. It did however become very very popular in Soviet “influenced” countries, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the GDR implemented a budget for “Baubezogene Kunst” (or Kunst am Bau). For every newly built or renovated government building, state owned enterprise, university and cultural center – 1% to 3% of the construction costs were allocated to creating public art, such as murals, fountains, sculptures etc.
The main function of this art was to showcase idealised images of society, though this was later expanded to showcase environmental designs. The bulk of the created works centered around friendship with the Soviet Union or other socialist nations, technical/social progress as well as construction related themes.
The city of Brandenburg built a series of new pre-fab buildings opposite the main train station in 1979, and as the buildings were to be completed on the 30th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic, they had decided that an especially impressive artwork should grace the building.
The artist they had picked was Emil Spiess. Born in 1938 in the small village of Oberschurten in East Prussia – he had studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. He was a member of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR, and had gained significant fame through various national and International exhibitions. Spiess had moved to Brandenburg Havel and used the city regularly as inspiration for his work.
Emil Spiess created a large mural titled “Brandenburg eine alte und eine neue Stadt” (Brandenburg an old and a new city), consisting of 15 3x3m large panels .
The mural was divided into three themes:
The bottom section depicted the historic buildings of Brandenburg Havel, specifically the Steintor, the St. Gotthardt church as well as the old houses – as well as the “newly” built Friedenswarte observation tower.
The middle section depicted a young woman with a bouquet of flowers, framed by construction workers and steel workers, while the top section depicted the industry and pre-fab buildings.
Its worth noting that the middle six panels were only covered in Italian glass mosaic tiles in 1981 after the mural had been attached to the building (in 1979) – as there had been significant issues in procurement of said glass tiles.
The apartments were slated for demolition in the early 2000s, and a debate broke out as what to do with the mural. The building was torn down in 2009 – but the mural was “saved”. The panels were put into storage until a proper solution could be found for them. On the 5 of November, 2016 – parts of Emil Spiess’ “Brandenburg eine alte und eine neue Stadt” were officially unveiled on the exterior wall of the Industrial Museum Brandenburg (which itself was a defunct steel mill).
It is unclear why only 9 of the 15 panels were affixed to the museum. Were some damaged during the removal process? Did they disappear during storage? A temporary mystery it seems. While it is commendable that an effort was made to save (some of) the mural, the fact half of it is missing, and that is being shown in pieces rather than in original composition is somewhat disappointing. Not only do you loose the sense of scale, you cannot fully identify what the mural once depicted (especially with two of the panels being used as a bike rack).
We did have a go at digitally “rebuilding” the mosaic, the white space being the sections of the mosaic that are missing. While its clear that the old steel mill doesn’t seem to have a large enough wall space on the outside to fit the complete mosaic, it still feels like they could have found a better solution than the current one.
Overall this one leaves us with mixed feelings. Both the Museum and the Mural (in combination) are very much worth a visit though.
Industriemuseum Brandenburg an der Havel
August-Sonntag-Straße 5, 14770
Brandenburg an der Havel
The Museum is currently closed for renovations and will reopen in April 2025.
