“Architecture and memory” is the theme of the upcoming Baumeister Architecture Quartet. The focus is on three Munich projects that deal with historical influences in very different ways.
Architecture and memory – not an easy and certainly not a particularly cheerful topic that we have chosen for the twelfth “Baumeister Architecture Quartet”. And not one that was a foregone conclusion either. But when we took a closer look at current construction projects in Munich together with our partner Heidelberger Beton, we quickly realized that it was all about dealing with the shadows of the past. With those shadows that sometimes extend into the present in the form of exhibition exhibits, but above all spatially.
If you are in the vicinity of Munich’s Königsplatz, you cannot ignore the fact that the NSDAP had its center here, right up to the end. The Nazi spirit is still visible today, not least in the form of the former “Führer Building”, which is now home to the Academy of Music. The Berlin office of Georg Scheel Wetzel is building the Nazi Documentation Center here, a long-discussed, highly ambitious project in terms of content. Its outer shell makes a clear statement. Towering, almost provocatively white, consistently modern. But perhaps also arbitrary? Too much should not be anticipated here. Just this much: we will have to ask whether categories of “adaptation to the place” are the right ones in an environment that is more likely to be understood as the epitome of evil than as a functioning piece of the city.
Our second object is still at least indirectly under the spell of the Nazi party district: Peter Böhm’s large building, which houses the Museum of Egyptian Art and the University of Television and Film. The question here will be: Does this highly compartmentalized architecture make sense? How does the museum relate to its neighboring sites of institutionalized horror?
In addition, the discussion of a museum building is of course also about dealing with the past in a completely different sense. How does a historical museum “transport” the past in its architecture? In the introduction to the excellent book “The City as a Project”, which has just been published by Ruby Press, editor Pier Vittorio Aureli writes: “Architecture has had a decisive role in forming ideas, concepts, and paradigms through which the city has evolved.” His entire book highlights the political and meaningful intentionality that architecture and urban planning entail – and have always entailed. In relation to a museum building, this means It never presents the past neutrally. It relates it to the present and works out what we (should) see in the past. This even applies to pasts as far back as the time of the ancient Egyptians.
The fact is that interest in the past is increasing. The forms of the pure present seem unrelated, they bore us. For this reason, it is perhaps even fitting that old bunkers are increasingly being put to new uses. Here, history becomes a frame of reference for architecture. The result may or may not be living space. In the case of the high-rise bunker on Ungererstraße, this is partly the case. Raumstation Architekten have, as they themselves openly write, created a “new urban dominant” here. The question is in what form this dominance is reflected in constructive spatial experiences – and what role the past of the bunker, which was completed in 1943, plays in this.
In short, the topic we have chosen with our guests Axel Hacke, Stephan Braunfels and Jeanette Kunsmann is broad and controversial. Let’s see how controversial it gets on October 30.
The event will take place on October 30 at 7 pm (admission from 6.30 pm) at the State Museum of Egyptian Art, Gabelsbergerstr. 35, Munich.
Panel guests
Axel Hacke, writer, columnist for SZ-Magazin, Munich
Jeanette Kunsmann, editor-in-chief of BauNetz, Berlin
Stephan Braunfels, architect, Munich/Berlin
Moderation: Alexander Gutzmer, Editor-in-Chief Baumeister, Munich
Projects
Munich NS Documentation Center
Architects: Georg Scheel Wetzel Architects, Berlin
Clients: City of Munich, Free State of Bavaria, Federal Government
High bunker Munich
Architects: Raumstation, Starnberg near Munich
Client: Euroboden – Stefan Höglmaier
State Museum of Egyptian Art – University of Television and Film in Munich
Architect: Peter Böhm Architects, Cologne
Client: Free State of Bavaria
Admission free with registration until October 22. Registration via the form below:
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