Auschwitz - Architecture of extermination : Last chance

The design and architecture of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp followed a single logic: the forms of the buildings were completely subordinated to their function as instruments of industrial genocide. Accordingly, the design and architecture of the facilities in Auschwitz implemented the famous principle of "form follows function". This formula was coined by Louis Sullivan, an American architect and one of the forefathers of architectural modernism.

Many historians have pointed out the seemingly contradictory connection between the Holocaust and the modernisation processes of the West: Wolfgang Sofsky described the concentration camp as a place where "the destructive power of modern organisation" was tested for efficiency, much like on the battlefield. In a comparable context is Zygmunt Bauman's thesis that "modern civilisation [...] was certainly not the only prerequisite for the Holocaust, but in all probability a necessary one".

Tomasz Lewandowski's photographs of the former Auschwitz concentration camp seem far removed from the mountain world of Obersalzberg. Yet the two places are closely connected: The decisions that Hitler and his confidants made here conditioned the murders in Auschwitz. A detailed presentation of the connection between Obersalzberg and Auschwitz is part of the permanent exhibition "Idyll and Crime".

Tomasz Lewandowski: born 1978 in Nysa, Poland, lives and works in Germany. As a documentary photographer, he is primarily concerned with the sociological dimension of architecture.

Information on the accompanying programme can be found at www.obersalzberg.de

Last edited on 19.03.2026