Saturday, April 26, 2008

Vienna Past/Perfect #2

The Karlsplatz u-bahn station must have been some kinda Jetsons glamour scene back in 1950, when these black and white photos were taken. Maybe the future seemed very sleek and fantastic for people who walked through it then. Today the undulating lines are the same, but the lingering passers-by have been replaced by permanent surveillance cameras, the champagne and cheese shops by tourist souvenir shops, and the bustling cafes by fast-food bakeries. Perhaps the world really is trending towards control and alienation. (And self-medication--though you wouldn't know it from these fotos, the Karlsplatz station is also the home of the most pathetic rummies and tweakers in the city.....)






6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool. Are the marble (?) columns in the recent pix the same as the originals, do you know, Pat?

pat said...

No, they aren't the same, and they may have been moved. There are ring marks around the base of the columns, as if they used to be bigger, though that doesn't quite jibe with the archival pictures. In the old fotos, the columns look about the same width, right? And when I was trying to duplicate the old pictures with my fotos, something about the alignment of the columns with the rest of the scene didn't quite match. It's a puzzle....

Ed Ward said...

Still, great before/after shots. Very impressive.

pat said...

Thanks, Ed. I'm finally learning how to use this goddamn digital.

Ed Ward said...

Great. Have a look at mine next and tell me how it works!

David C. Fox said...

the re-photography is cool.