Garbe, Lahmeyer & Co. The story
T
he founding of several companies, inspired by the spectacular successes and events in the use of electricity for the production of light and drive power, was in the 1880s for the production of the technical devices and machines of the current time switch. Werner von Siemens, who already operated a thriving business with telegraphic systems as early as 1847, was able to look back on a success story already
in the past decades in this young industrial sector. In 1883 Emil Rathenau wrote the “Edison Society in Berlin”, which became the AEG in 1887, especially influenced by Edison’s “Electrotechnical Exhibition”, which was coined by Edison and his inventions. In 1886, the origin of Garbe, Lahmeyer & Co. in Aachen can be seen in this temporal and industrial-historical context.
1910/11 the factory was expanded by the workshop buildings north and south. Since the 1920s, engines have been built for Krupp marshalling locomotives. 1925 drove the first rubbish truck with Garbe-Lahmeyer-Krupp engine in the Rhenish Braunkohlenrevier. After 1933 machine tool drives and motors for the equipment of the hydrogenation plants were built. The assembly hall 1938 - 40 had to be expanded for the ever growing transformers. Since without these large-scale machines the warring hydrogenation plants based on stone and brown coal could not have been built, the extension of the plant was included in the emergency stage 1 of the organization Todt. This building phase also includes the expansion and façade glare of the administrative building. In the Second World War production was partially and gradually transferred to Düsseldorf-Benrath in 1940. After 1945, reconstruction began with a first enlargement of the Werkstattbau-Süd (Krantzstr.) In 1950 and a second enlargement with an increase in 1960/61. In the mid-1990s production was halted. The introduction of electricity into industry and everyday life, which has often been classified as the “Second Industrial Revolution”, was closely linked to the emergence of a new industry in the production of the
machines and apparatus required for the production and implementation of electricity. The modernization of industry and society led to the construction of power stations and electrical factories. They were buildings and installations which were still arrested in the old forms of historicism, and which, in their thorough study and the richness of their forms, expressed the pride of the bourgeoisie in shaping the beginning of a new epoch. Soon, however, the power plants became exemplary modern factories and the electrical companies became bearers of change through the appointment of renowned architects, especially Peter Behrens for AEG and Hans Hertlein for Siemens. The question of how and why modernity has arisen must be given special attention by the question of the introduction of electricity. Beyond this, industrial architecture plays an outstanding and constitutive function for modernism in this frontier between historism and modernity. Peter Behrens, Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut, and others, were only the head of a much broader movement with a turning to the practicality, which was borne especially by architects in the years before the First World War To the construction industry: Erberich and Scheeben in Cologne, Walter Furthmann in Düsseldorf, Alfred Fischer in Essen, Raabe and Wöhl-
ecke in Hamburg, Werner Issel and Hans Heinrich Müller in Berlin. To this circle, the architects’ association of Salzmann and Ganzlin in Düsseldorf is to be reckoned with. In the design of the workshop buildings North and South for the company Garbe, Lahmeyer & Co. Formations of architecture are found by Alfred Messel. Very obvious is the relationship with the 1908-10 Peter Behrens created small engine factory of the AEG in Berlin.
However, in the architectural appearance of Garbe & Lahmeyer’s factories, it is precisely in relation to the buildings of 1899/1900 (Arch. Flocke) dating from the founding period of the new building on Jülich Street and the works on the extension of the works of 1910/11 (Arch. Salzmann and Ganzlin) Building of one of the essential themes of our century: the emergence of modernism.
In addition, the assembly hall with its steel and reinforced concrete construction offers an interesting example of the construction history of large halls. The development of the concrete architecture is also tangible in the extension buildings of 1950 and 1960/61. The administrative building is an important part of the entire complex and an example of the architecture that oscillated between modernity,
regionalism and monumental architecture during the Nazi era. All in all, the factories described above are an important phase in the history of industrial history, which is able to show the development of working and production conditions both through the products manufactured there and in the internal work organization with the transmissions operated by electric motors.
Garbe Lahmeyer & Co. Fashion Academy Opening January 2017
Wayne Sterling: Where in China are you from Fei Fei? Fei Fei Sun: I’m from a small town near to Shanghai. I model in Shanghai though. WS Your agent tells me you studied fashion at your University. FF. Yes I was studying clothing design and there was a little bit of modeling to that.At Suzhou University they allow you to study just about anything. Taking photographs…modeling…clothing design…or singing…playing the piano…You could study anything at my school. WS: Do you think you’re going to be famous in China? FF: In China the Market Directors always come to the shows in Milan and Paris.. When the fashion editors see me in the shows they stop me after the show to say congratulations. It is my first time in Europe. I’m a new face there. WS: It means it is a growing market.How was experiencing Europe for the first time? FF: I liked it . During the day you had many to things to do and you had very little free time. I got to see many famous models. Many super girls and Top Models. WS: And now you’re one of them (laughs) FF: Every fashion show I go to is a new one for me. For me all the clothes were a surprise. I enjoyed all the designers. They were different. Different people had a different style. You could see their personality in the clothes they made. WS: You said it so perfectly. Are you going back to university soon? FF: Modeling is the first thing now but school will always be important too. In school you can learn a lot of different things. Your friends and you are all growing together. When I am finished modeling I will go back to school to study to be a clothing designer.
How long have you been a design student and what got you interested in fashion as a career? I studied for two years in Oslo (where I'm from), took two years off, and then transferred to Parsons in New York where I started at the sophomore level. I’m now a senior in my last semester—so it’s my fifth year studying design.
Is there a person whose career in particular you admire? There are two people who I admire for their philosophy and approach to design: - Kenya Hara, a Japanese graphic designer and curator, who’s best known for his art direction at MUJI. He likes to review and rethink what we already know, takes away the useless or extraneous, and explores emptiness as an imaginative space and solution. - Dieter Rams, a German industrial designer, known for his work at Braun. His “Ten Principles of Good Design” is a very straightforward list that states what he thinks makes a good product and I find it to be very inspiring and true. My favourite principles are: “Good design is honest,” “Good design makes a product useful,” and “Good design is long-lasting.”