View from Köln-Deutz to the Eifel

A touchstone for artists attracted to cataloguing as a means of conveying social insights, August Sander is known for his quasi-systematic inventory of German society titled People of the Twentieth Century. Sander also photographed the cityscape, beginning in his hometown of Cologne in the early 1920s, soon after returning from military duty. With the same attention he bestowed on his fellow citizens, he systematically photographed the architectural landscape and monuments of Cologne, which were demolished by air raids in World War II. The project, which he later named Cologne As It Was, included more than 400 photographs, ranging from close-up studies of architectural details to panoramic views of the city’s skyline bisected by the Rhine River, as seen here.