PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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relationship between transport, transport infrastructures and economic development has
been dramatically redefined over the last half century.
2.2.1 From Henry Ford’s Assembly Lines to VW’s “Transparent Factory” 1
Wealth creation as a whole has become an increasingly complex and dematerialized
concept. Successful modern economies are less and less based on heavy
production industries dependent on large-scale flows of material goods and bulk
production. Instead, they rely on complex webs of inter-dependent service sector
industries that are much more dependent on flexible, small batch production and just-intime
delivery. Technological innovations have also vastly expanded the range of
transport options, with traditional land-based modes of transportation such as road and
rail now intensely competing both among themselves and with water and air transport.
Regardless of particular emphases and specialized terminologies, there is
widespread agreement that Western industrial societies now operate under a so-called
post-Fordist mode(l) of development. Since the mid-seventies, production in the
advanced Western societies has switched from mass production/mass consumption to
more flexible, just-in-time delivery of less standardized, more differentiated products.
Volkswagen’s recently opened transparent luxury car manufacture in Dresden, Germany
1 Advertised by Volkswagen (VW) as “the world’s most fascinating automotive assembly plant” and
opened in March 2002 with much national fanfare, the new VW car factory in Dresden, Germany
symbolizes the quintessential post-Fordist (and, in many ways, post-modern) production space. The plant’s
name “Gläserne Manufaktur,” – which VW itself translates as “Transparent Factory,” but which might be
more archaically translated as “Vitreous Manufactory” and whose German name also contains a clear
reference to the world-famous Dresden Porcelain Manufactory (Porzellan-Manufaktur) – is to be taken
quite literally in the sense that its outside walls are entirely made of glass so that all production processes
can be in full view of spectators. The plant is laid out to custom-produce 150 luxury sedans per day. All
workers wear clean, white overalls. For additional information and images of the plant, check out
http://www.glaeserne-manufaktur.de .