Half-Renovated Houses

When the mining industry declined in the Ruhr region of Germany, workers began selling their houses…but only half of them. Colossal explains:

When the once burgeoning coal industry in Ruhrgebiet, Germany, began to decline, many of the workers’ apartments were sold off. Oftentimes, new owners only purchased half of the building — miners maintained a lifelong right of residence to their quarters — creating a stark split between the left and right sides of the structure.

Photographer Wolfgang Fröhling documented a number of these split-personality houses where the two sides of the buildings have diverged post-sale, a particularly stark representation of gentrification.

• architecture
• photography
• Wolfgang Frohling