On July 20, 2017, the Thomas Wimmer municipal vocational school center for construction and arts and crafts on Luisenstraße in Munich opened its stonemasonry and woodcarving workshops to the public, explicitly targeting classes from general education schools. The opportunity to take a look behind the scenes of the professions presented was met with great interest.
Stone carving station: Sculptor Dana Knop shows external pupils how to carve stone. (Photo: Michael Senn)
Hartmut Hintner, design teacher for stonemasons and stone sculptors, explains exhibits from this year's summer exhibition of the Munich schools on Luisenstraße to a school class. (Photo: Michael Senn)
Visitors were able to try their hand at calligraphy in the corridors on the second floor. (Photo: Michael Senn)
Hartmut Hintner, design teacher for stonemasons and stone sculptors, stood in the middle of his audience and explained the contributions to this year’s summer exhibition. A guided tour to inform any future pupils about the training opportunities for wood sculptors, goldsmiths, stonemasons and stone carvers at the school complex on Luisenstraße. After the general part, the classes were divided into smaller groups and were allowed to try out their skills in a total of five work areas. In addition to the established stone carving and wood carving stations, this time there was also calligraphy, lettering, a printing workshop and the opportunity to discover bronze chasing. Hartmut Hintner: “Our students show interested visitors how we work here. Visitors can also try out for themselves how to work stone or carve wood. Our aim is to highlight career opportunities and raise our profile.” This is why Headmaster Hans Seger wrote to grammar schools, secondary schools and middle schools in Munich and the surrounding area and invited their graduating classes and refugee classes to the open workshop day. The concept was well received, with many acceptances. Hintner was delighted: “Many young people from the surrounding schools also came along, as did our alumni, of course.”
In the printing workshop, which was set up for the first time, Barbara Quintus and her colleagues had come up with a program that even inexperienced people could manage. “The aim here is to achieve beautiful results with little effort,” she explained. This was achieved, for example, by pulling a thread soaked in paint out from between two sheets of paper that were pressed together using a pressure plate. The popularity confirmed Quintus’ approach – the printing workshop was very well received.
At the stone carving station, visitors were able to carve lettering and try out various hand tools on a block of shell limestone. Here, however, the visitors to the open workshop were somewhat more passive: there seemed to be a great deal of reverence for the material. Many preferred to watch sculptor Dana Knop as she engraved letters into the Jura limestone slab blow by blow, while the hammer blows typical of stone carving rang out.