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pizza regionale, pizza karlsruhe.

My hometown Karlsruhe is a city in Baden-Wuerttemberg, South-West Germany. With just under 300 000 citizens and a total area of about 174 square kilometers the third biggest city within the province is situated very close to the Rhineland-Palatinate and the Alsace.

Founded in 1715 by the Markgrave Carl Wilhelm von Baden-Durlach, under Carl‘s successor Carl Friedrich „Carolsruh“ became the capital and residence of the grand duchy that covered an area from the Odenwald down to the lake Constance. The union with the Swabian neighbour in 1951 made an end to Karlsruhe‘s status as the capital and turned it into one of many cities considered unattractive for tourists. That state has to this day not changed. My choice for the first issue of this magazine was Karlsruhe: my hometown.

I wrote down fourteen episodes of the town‘s history in my own words and added my personal thoughts to the stories. Thereafter I translated them into the English language. The issue „ Karlsruhe “ is complemented by an article summing up the places and incidents that were not covered in the stories as well as it explains the reason for their non-existance. A brief introduction of myself as this issue‘s author makes the magazine complete.

Thanks to their complexity the Collages illustrating the magazine are able to draw a bow from history to the present. They combine details from the time when Karlsruhe was founded with modern imagery. In their very way they narrate episodes from the text contemplating it, but at the same time being readable without any comment. The illustrations appear twice, with the German text and on the flipside with the English translation. They differ in details that aren‘t revealed to the beholder but at second sight. However the differences don‘t value. The similar not identical illustrations reveal that I painted a very personal picture of Karlsruhe . Thus, readers are invited to do so themselves and develop their very view of the town.