Brown Boveri factory, Osasco, SP. Brazil

German photographer Hans Gunter Flieg, a poet of steel and concrete, was 16 years old when the swell of anti-Semitism led by Adolf Hitler pressed his family to migrate to São Paulo, just in time to become one of the chief documenters of the explosive urban and industrial development that transformed the city in the mid-20th century
Flieg’s work, comprising some 35,000 black-and-white negatives, was acquired directly from him by the IMS in July 2006. In parallel with the photographs that make up the bulk of the collection, it includes series dedicated to documenting the city’s historical heritage and its popular culture, mostly taken for UNICEF, in 1971. Among the great works that he documented, highlights include the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), the Ibirapuera Gymnasium, and the hydroelectric plants at Jupiá and Ilha Solteira.