Thomas Elsner

Lost to the World: The secret Lübeck of another native son Everyone knows the UNESCO World Heritage–protected Lübeck with its Holstentor, warped gables, and sweet marzipan figurines, the city of a thousand picture-postcard views. In his novel “Buddenbrooks,” Thomas Mann painted the fading glory of the erstwhile “Queen of the Hanseatic League” and its patrician burghers, the descendants of powerful merchants. Set on an island enclosed by the channels of a river, the Old Town with its seven steeples still stands tall. But there is also the Lübeck of the locals. The art director, designer, independent magazine publisher, and photographer Thomas Elsner (b. Lübeck, 1956; lives and works in Munich) was fourteen when his father gave him a camera and started taking him on rambles throughout Lübeck, showing him many a secret favorite spot. In the photo series Lubeca My Reflection, Elsner explores this heritage of his native city. The result is an almost imperceptible update of the aesthetic of slow decay in a city that still likes to call itself the “Venice of the North.” The book—with a preface by Björn Engholm—includes notes from a conversation between Frido Mann and Larissa Beham as well as essays by Karl-Hermann Leukert and Ingo Siegmund.