The architecture of model railway systems in the German post-war economic boom was surprisingly modern. New stood next to old, high-rises and half-timbered buildings coexisted peacefully. Still today the famous “Villa in Ticino,” high-rises, gas stations, and train and administrative buildings of the post-war period connect generations throughout Germany. märklinMODERNE shows for the first time how enthusiastic the nostalgic model railway builders truly were for modernism. The exhibition and catalog compare the plastic assembly kits with the real buildings that inspired them, bringing the architecture and model construction history of post-war modernity together.

Photographs by Hagen Stier and Andreas Beyer; interviews with Falk Jaeger, Leopold Messmer and Klaus Staeck; texts by Oliver Elser, Dina Dorothea Falbe, Teresa Fankhänel, Christian Holl, Ralf Liptau, Matthias Ludwig, Verena Pfeiffer-Kloss, C. Julius Reinsberg and Jörg Schilling. Edited by Daniel Bartetzko and Karin Berkemann

The exhibition by the online magazine moderneREGIONAL opens on the 19th of May 2018 in the German Architecture Museum (DAM) in Frankfurt am Main (until September 9, 2018) and will be shown from July 12 until October 7, 2018 in the architekturgalerie am weißenhof e. V. in Stuttgart. The exhibition will be accompanied by a film by Otto Schweitzer (Premiere: August 11, 2018 in DAM).