The old Halle slaughterhouse gapes like a wound in the heart of a city in Eastern Germany. One hundred thirty years after its construction and three decades after its closure, this former insider tip for fans of "lost places" is now nothing more than a gutted and burned-out ruin. It was meant to be vibrant, colorful, and unrestrained.
Art ago
Without a grand plan or compromise, the Halle street artist Jama launched what was arguably the city's largest art project about 30 years ago. Jama, then in his late thirties, chose Halle's most extensive industrial wasteland as his personal canvas: the old slaughterhouse, opened in 1893 and closed permanently two years after the fall of the GDR, cleared out, continually decaying, set on fire, destroyed, and literally gutted.
For years, the artist designed the vast area next to the railway's new train formation yard and painted the halls - a wild, unregulated work of art that emerged largely unnoticed by the public. The slaughterhouse hall hosted a memorable avant-garde concert in the 1990s. Instead of stucco and listed buildings, photographs now document a history of decay.
On the tallest tower
The artist's project is recognizable from the outside only by the inscription "Jama greets Halle" emblazoned on the tallest tower.
The industrial monument, consisting of slaughterhouses, market halls, a cold storage facility, a boiler house, and several administrative buildings, shows its last flicker of life after bands like the U.S. avant-garde group Gwar performed here with fountains of fake blood.
But the more time passed without prospects for the 4.8-hectare site, the faster the decay progressed. A buyer went bankrupt, the ownership situation became unclear, and the next owner had plans but no funds. Many projects were planned: an exhibition center, a residential area, a shopping center, a neighborhood project with green energy, and a communal canteen - but none were realized.
A monument of the past
Halle's "1st Municipal Slaughterhouse and Livestock Yard," once described as an architecturally significant monument, is now an overgrown karst landscape of crumbling stones, collapsed roofs, and rubble.
Where, at its peak, up to 1,000 workers slaughtered 1,000 pigs per shift, garbage now piles up. The smell of cold smoke fills the air, roofs have collapsed, holes gape in the ground, and trees grow from the walls.
Dozens of destroyed computer monitors lie in one hall, and old checks, payroll slips, and delivery lists blow through the ruins. Soot from repeated fires blackens the walls, rain has bleached Jama's paintings, and graffiti artists have sprayed over them - the decay has also caused the idea of street art to fade.
Dark atmosphere
Today, little remains of the former industrial architecture, which was built on the outskirts of the city for hygienic reasons to prevent the cattle drive from disrupting city traffic.
Even lost-places enthusiasts in internet forums warn against having overly high expectations: the old slaughterhouse can hardly be compared to other, better-preserved sites. Still, they say, the place retains "great architecture and a typical atmosphere" - a last vestige of bygone industrial culture.
