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Background information
"Our image of 19th century industrial architecture was primarily shaped by the production facilities of coal processing and steel production. Bernd and Hilla BECHER have captured almost all varieties of this industrial heritage in impressive individual photographs and typologies. In the photo book 'Steinwerke und Kalmköfen' (Stone Works and Lime Kilns) they set a photographic monument to a much older industrial tradition: the stone-working industry, which is still of great and fundamental importance today. Rocks and minerals have been mined for thousands of years - mostly above ground. However, before houses, churches, bridges and roads can be built from cement and concrete, the raw material has to be elaborately prepared. The mechanical processing operations of washing, screening, sorting and crushing are carried out in stone and crushing plants. This type of tall and overhanging buildings, usually located in the immediate vicinity of the quarries and enthroned like castles above the mining areas, is presented in detail in this volume. The limestone has always experienced a very special refinement. By "burning" in special kilns and later "slaking" in water basins, a versatile building material is created.
Content
In more than 200 high-quality duotone plates the photo book 'Steinwerke und Kalköfen' (Stone Works and Lime Kilns) by Bernd & Hilla BECHER - the 19th volume of the Becher series of the publishing house - presents the building types of stone processing in their richness of variations. Depending on the region, minerals and time of origin, the lime kilns, cement works, processing and bottling plants - highly aesthetic 'dinosaurs' of the industrial 'Stone Age' - show the most diverse characteristics.
The book opens with a series of old, brick-built lime kilns from Holland, where shell limestone is still being mined on the North Sea coast. Finally, detailed photographs illustrate the gigantic dimensions and the materiality of the majestic buildings. Stone works and lime kilns' shows the wide range of building types that have created the stone production, for the first time in an overview. Precisely because the plants work with seemingly archaic processes, the rhythmic sequences of images reveal their own hidden musicality and haunting beauty, which transports us into a world of their own. This makes the voluminous photo volume 'Steinwerke und Kalköfen' a timeless classic. (slightly adapted text by the publisher, © Schirmer / Mosel Verlag, 2013)
Book review
"In the course of almost five decades Bernd and Hilla BECHER have documented almost all kinds of industrial architecture - from water towers and steelworks to gas tanks and grain silos - in Europe and the USA. Whether individual photographs or their typical typological tableaux, Bernd & Hilla BECHER created a photographic testament to the industrial revolution that shaped the 19th and 20th centuries. At the same time, they also recorded a much older manufacturing tradition: the mining and processing of stone.
This book of photographs, 'Steinwerke und Kalköfen', is dedicated to her photographs of stone processing plants and lime kilns taken in the 1980s and 90s in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria and Great Britain. (...) Some of these pictures were taken in earlier monographs, but this is the first comprehensive collection of Bernd & Hilla BECHER's study on stone works and lime kilns. Well printed, this volume complements over a dozen other titles from the publisher. Stone Works and Lime Kilns' reflects the open range and detail expected in reproductions of their works. With 232 duotone photographs, this volume adds another important and significant view into the archive of Bernd & Hilla BECHER". (freely translated, © Jeffrey Ladd, in: HatjeCantz Fotoblog, May 28, 2013, accessed on November 18, 2020)