kurstadt flow
Lower Franconia 2015
It was like something out of a fairy tale. But the reasons for this were neither magical nor romantic. Severe socio-economic shifts in Germany have forced numerous spa towns to close forever. Some owners haven't given up yet, carefully maintaining and cleaning the unoccupied hotels, bathhouses, theatres, and cafés, as if waiting for a miracle. In other cases, the relentless passage of time has left its mark already.
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Kurstädte (German for "Spa towns") once attracted many thousand people annually. Families, young and old went there to cure stress, traumas and illnesses and to breath the healthy air of the salines. Three weeks per year prescribed by the doctor, payed by the health insurance. This suddenly changed in the year 1996 when a nationwide health reform was implemented. The austerity measures included that the health insurances no longer paid for the cure vacation. For most spa towns this initiated an economic downfall which lines up with the wider trend of depopulation, desertification and lack of financial means in many rural regions.
We found abandoned spa facilities in all states of decay. The shown photographs were taken in the abandoned spa towns of Lower Franconia in 2015.
A special thanks to my friend naked.photography for opening my eyes for this strange world!
