Knopfstadt
by Max Korndörfer

Since the end of the 19th century, countless men and women have worked side by side in more than 35 button factories in the small town of Bärnau. They punched, milled, sanded, dyed and packaged the works of art made from mother-of-pearl, wood, horn and later polyester and polyamide, which were traded worldwide. The only button-making school in Europe at the time, as well as the ‘IKNOFA’, the International Button Exhibition, brought the city international renown. Towards the end of the 20th century, global market changes caused the button industry in Bärnau to falter – the town’s heartbeat weakened. The inhabitants experienced the bitter irony that the specialisation in button production, which once provided work, now led to unemployment. Fascinated by the now seemingly exotic button industry, I have been working in and around Bärnau with various photographic means to approach the industrial development of a now economically and structurally weak area on the Bavarian-Czech border in Germany.