Will McBride. I Was in Love With This City.

Photographs 1956–1963

Will McBride

Life pulsates amid urban ruins as the first signs of economic recovery light up the post-war gloom. Despite the radical ideological battles taking place, a youthful feeling of freedom spreads throughout the front city of the Cold War. One decade after Germany’s surrender, Berlin is still in a state of emergency, caught between piles of rubble and milk bars, political rallies and boating parties. Wandering in the midst of these everyday contradictions is a self-assured young American with extraordinary curiosity and a fresh eye, intent on capturing people and their appetite for life in photographs – Will McBride. Fascinating in their authenticity, intimacy, and a dynamic that goes far beyond the melancholy and raw post-war realism we’ve seen until now, his black-and-white images of former landscapes comprised of ruin and rubble carry through to the time the Berlin Wall was built. In 1957, Will McBride was the first photographer to show his works at Amerika Haus. For this reason, C/O Berlin opens the building with his images and presents for the first time approximately one hundred photographs from his œuvre that have never before been shown.