Nearly 30 years after the collapse of the GDR and the reunification of Germany the deserted buildings of the former Directorate of Reconnaissance – the foreign intelligence service in Berlin offer a daily reminder of the feared Stasi and the experience of the cold war in the divided city.
 
Robert Conrad’s photos of the abandoned offices and facilities are not an indulgent exercise in aesthetics of decay. Their matter of fact documentary approach offers a powerful visual commentary on what ultimately amounts to the banality of the former totalitarian communist state.