The Transparant (car) Factory
This is the Gläserne Manufaktur or Glass Factory a.k.a. Transparent Factory if you translate it in English. It’s a state-of-the-art Volkswagen car factory in the German city of Dresden. It is situated just outside the historic city center next to the Großer Garten.
The Gläserne Manufaktur was designed by architect Gunther Henn. It came ‘online’ for production in 2002. The factory consists largely of glass, including the façade and inner walls. Therefore a fair bit of the production process can be seen from the outside. At the factory Volkswagen produced its top model, the Phaeton, from 2002 to 2016. The Volkswagen XL1 – a limited diesel-powered plug-in hybrid – was also produced here. After the production of the Phaeton was shutdown, the factory was completely converted in 2017 for E-Golf production.
Since the production changeover, the factory was re-developed into a Center of Future Mobility. Customers and visitors can experience the production of the E-Golf live and learn more about the future of mobility in an interactive world of experience for electromobility and digitization. This also includes free test drives through Dresden in electric vehicles. Furthermore, all electric vehicles of the Volkswagen brand are delivered to customers in the Gläserne Manufaktur.
Because of the more and more high(er) demand, production has been split into a two-shift operation since 2018, producing 72 E-Golfs per day. Since Autumn 2020, the E-Golf production is replaced by the ID.3; the first Volkswagen designed purely as an electric car.
All heavy and noisy operations, such as stamping, welding and painting of the steel body, takes place in Zwickau. The painted chassis, car bodies and parts arrive at the factory on trucks. The other 1,200 parts and 34 pre-assembled components are transported from Zwickau by freight trams running on the Dresden public transport track, eliminating the need for (more) polluting trucks to enter the city.
Technical stuff
This panorama was inspired by the black-and-white fine art photos I made earlier this year. I planted my camera in the outer corner of the walkway surrounding the Gläserne Manufaktur. Also matching it with the direction of the clouds.
Next, I took 10 overlapping shots in one row and series. Maintaining an overlap of 40% due to the rugged contours and constructive lines of the factory and surrounding area. Luckily, the clouds in the sky moved at a rather slow pace, so I could pan the camera in accordance with them and keep an even pattern in the sky.
The initial pano merge was done with Photoshop CC. This resulted in a wallpaper size canvas of roughly 1,2 GB. I cropped it to 13134 x 6002 pixels.
Further post-production was done in a mixture of Lightroom and Photoshop. It included a conversion to black-and-white, balancing the lighting conditions, underlining the dynamic sky a little more, adding a bit more contrast and tuned the curves. Finally I added some small copyright signs. The latter is, alas, there to stay due to the frequent copying of my photos. So, don't bother commenting on that.
The Transparant (car) Factory
This is the Gläserne Manufaktur or Glass Factory a.k.a. Transparent Factory if you translate it in English. It’s a state-of-the-art Volkswagen car factory in the German city of Dresden. It is situated just outside the historic city center next to the Großer Garten.
The Gläserne Manufaktur was designed by architect Gunther Henn. It came ‘online’ for production in 2002. The factory consists largely of glass, including the façade and inner walls. Therefore a fair bit of the production process can be seen from the outside. At the factory Volkswagen produced its top model, the Phaeton, from 2002 to 2016. The Volkswagen XL1 – a limited diesel-powered plug-in hybrid – was also produced here. After the production of the Phaeton was shutdown, the factory was completely converted in 2017 for E-Golf production.
Since the production changeover, the factory was re-developed into a Center of Future Mobility. Customers and visitors can experience the production of the E-Golf live and learn more about the future of mobility in an interactive world of experience for electromobility and digitization. This also includes free test drives through Dresden in electric vehicles. Furthermore, all electric vehicles of the Volkswagen brand are delivered to customers in the Gläserne Manufaktur.
Because of the more and more high(er) demand, production has been split into a two-shift operation since 2018, producing 72 E-Golfs per day. Since Autumn 2020, the E-Golf production is replaced by the ID.3; the first Volkswagen designed purely as an electric car.
All heavy and noisy operations, such as stamping, welding and painting of the steel body, takes place in Zwickau. The painted chassis, car bodies and parts arrive at the factory on trucks. The other 1,200 parts and 34 pre-assembled components are transported from Zwickau by freight trams running on the Dresden public transport track, eliminating the need for (more) polluting trucks to enter the city.
Technical stuff
This panorama was inspired by the black-and-white fine art photos I made earlier this year. I planted my camera in the outer corner of the walkway surrounding the Gläserne Manufaktur. Also matching it with the direction of the clouds.
Next, I took 10 overlapping shots in one row and series. Maintaining an overlap of 40% due to the rugged contours and constructive lines of the factory and surrounding area. Luckily, the clouds in the sky moved at a rather slow pace, so I could pan the camera in accordance with them and keep an even pattern in the sky.
The initial pano merge was done with Photoshop CC. This resulted in a wallpaper size canvas of roughly 1,2 GB. I cropped it to 13134 x 6002 pixels.
Further post-production was done in a mixture of Lightroom and Photoshop. It included a conversion to black-and-white, balancing the lighting conditions, underlining the dynamic sky a little more, adding a bit more contrast and tuned the curves. Finally I added some small copyright signs. The latter is, alas, there to stay due to the frequent copying of my photos. So, don't bother commenting on that.