Freiburg memories: Theaterläden and Weingarten

When I arrived in Freiburg, Cinemaxx was still a parking lot. The modern buildings there today replaced more modest structures seen in this picture. You can also see them at the right of the theater (the big building on the left) in the picture below, taken from the cathedral spire around 1994.



The buildings were not much to look at and were probably intended to be provisional anyway, a bit like the train station nearby. The trees to the right behind the theater are where the parking lot was. A relationship of mine started there – in a large pile of leaves.

Not much else has changed in this photo that is visible, but I would like to draw your attention to the concrete high-rises in the background. Zoom in, and you see that they were a dreary gray. Today they have at least been painted and/or clad with attractive metal siding (see this photo). The change is significant because it shows how many decades it took for Germany just to build up basic infrastructure without being able to focus on aesthetics. But since I got here, the focus has increasingly been on aesthetics, and the built environment has become noticeably more attractive.