Martin Maleschka

Martin Maleschka was born on Labor Day 1982 in Eisenhüttenstadt. Growing up in the 1980s in the first socialist city on German soil, he was shaped as much by buildings in the national architectural tradition of the early 1950s as by the late GDR’s new housing developments on the city outskirts, built using large-panel construction methods.

He studied architecture at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, and during that time his enthusiasm for photography grew. Since then, Martin Maleschka has combined both passions and has long since become one of the most accomplished experts and documentarians of East German modernist architecture and architecture-related art. Driven by personal experiences with the urban redevelopment program still underway in his hometown of Eisenhüttenstadt—during which three of his former residences were demolished—he has been documenting the disappearance of the GDR’s architectural heritage for more than two decades.