|
|
|
Erich Kästner Museum Dresden - Small is beautiful
|
|
TText: Ira Mazzoni, deutsche bauzeitung November 2002
|
|
|
Architect: Ruairí O´Brien
The Erich Kästner Museum in Dresden is no larger than a walk-in closet. The self-sufficient miniature house which, when closed, forms a cuboid measuring 3 x 2 x 1.2 metres, consists of a multimedia nucleus with a display area for exhibits, books and thirteen satellite columns for accessible objects. This minimalist museum is a radical new departure from standard museum concepts, especially in its use of spatial resources. This idea is the leitmotif in all of the architect's projects.
The world's first mobile interactive micromuseum has transformed a misjudged investment into a living place of learning. And that's not all - Villa Augustin on Dresden's Albertplatz has become a hotspot on the cultural map of the capital of Saxony. Even the local tram stop has now been renamed "Albertplatz - Erich Kästner Museum", which is announced when the tram comes to a halt there. A long forgotten story is returning to public awareness: The world-famous author of children's books, Erich Kästner, was born in a rented apartment in the nearby Königsbrücker Strasse. Kästner was a regular visitor after his uncle, Franz Augustin, acquired the turn-of-the-century villa on Albertplatz in 1915, having amassed a fortune as a horse dealer. "I loved to sit on the garden wall and watch the hustle and bustle on Albertplatz... Albertplatz was the stage. I sat in the theatre box between jasmine and trees and couldn't get enough" writes Kästner in his childhood memoirs "When I was a little boy". A memory has returned to the Neustadt area of Dresden.
The conditions for establishing a museum to Kästner could hardly have been worse. Deutsche Krankenversicherung (German Health Insurance, DKV) had Villa Augustin renovated in 1997/98 in accordance with the regulations for preserved buildings. The finished building has modernist steel and glass element at the entrance and in the conservatory and standard office rooms, making it virtually unrentable. It also didn't help that the owner sat an expensive bronze statue on the garden wall in a hopelessly sentimental attempt to rescue the history of the house. And then came the initiative group with their idea for a Kästner Museum - but without support from the city authorities. No premises, no collection, no estate and no authorisation from Kästner's heirs. How could anyone found a museum in such a situation? With his Trojan horse, the micromuseum, O´Brien not only conquered Villa Augustin and persuaded DKV to become their allies in the project, he also created a new type of literature museum which doesn't even need the author's typewriter, hat and coat. The fact that these items are on display in the museum's nucleus just goes to show that now even Kästner's heirs have been won over for the institution.
The Trojan horse smuggled into the fortress of Ilion by the "cunning" Ulysses must have been excellently built - the Greeks were experienced seamen and boat-builders. O´Brien's micromuseum is also a highly mobile wooden sculpture, a simple but effective construction which conceals a multitude of surprises. The museum is made up of a multimedia nucleus, currently surrounded by six columns. Thirteen such columns are planned (additional columns are added when the museum's research and sponsorship funds allow it), which will eventually completely surround the central block. When closed, the museum measures 2 x 3 x 1.2 metres. A wooden cuboid of this size could fit in anywhere, even in an office or a school classroom. The outer faces of this cubic "niche maker" are finished in fine American cherry tree veneer. Cut-out grips with coloured backgrounds indicate that the block-like structure, which appears to be hermetically sealed, conceals a colourful interior. In order to discover the miniature world of Kästner for themselves, visitors must pull the columns away from the nucleus, which is finished in light-coloured pine, and push them to one side. When turned around, the columns reveal colourful shelves and drawers, which visitors can peruse at their leisure: each drawer contains clues to Erich Kästner's life and work - copies of the author's signature, newspaper cuttings, photographs. Each visitor chooses their own route through the museum, searches, finds, discovers and finally pieces together their own image of Kästner from the puzzle of information they have found. Visitors must use a range of senses and faculties to deal with the complex space of the wooden structure, which is virtually unlimited thanks to the use of the internet. When they open the blue, red, yellow and green drawers, each of which is assigned a main theme, visitors soon lose track of time and rediscover the quality of slowness browsing and leafing through the books. The lucky ones find the folding chairs in one of the slots of the pinewood nucleus in time. When the visitor finally reaches the multimedia nucleus, the simple time machine accelerates and one double-click catapults them to any of thousands of Kästner sites in the World Wide Web. The Kästner Museum is a logical combination of low-tech and high-tech elements to an information whole.
Is it architecture? Can this structure be given the same name as large, aesthetically showy projects? Architecture, sculpture, furniture - for the interdisciplinarian O'Brien, the dividing lines between them are blurred. Like all good architects, he considers himself an all-round artist with a responsibility to society. For him, architecture is applied art which can both educate and learn.
His micromuseum is a self-sufficient entity, architecturally structured with a base, roof and facades (even if they do overlook the "courtyard"), walls, doors, windows and innumerable rooms which are home to many human lives. The mobile house in a house, designed for organic growth to help save resources, fulfils the role of a museum ideally in a minimal space: the Musaion in Ancient Greece was the place where the muses, the daughters of Mnemosyne (memory) were honoured. The micromuseum re-activates our memory, and even trains it like no other museum. Now where did I find that letter to his mother? Oh yes, in that green drawer in the column on the left! The museum is a fun memory game which brings associations to life. The treasure chest is also an aesthetic space, as it schools perception. A sensually holistic entity.
Like all good architecture, the Kästner Museum has an influence on the city. The low budget project has brought new life to more than just the dead villa. The Dresden Literature Office has moved in - now readings take place regularly in the conservatory of the villa, the museum itself has become a study and development project for museologists. The institution has made a subtle contribution to helping the Neustadt area find its identity and continue to grow. Small things can have big effects.
The Irish architect, Ruairí O´Brien, has specialised in building Trojan horses, perhaps not with the intention of changing history, but at least to point things in a new direction. It is his personal manifesto for small, intelligent, flexible, effective modular systems. He has also created an open air micromuseum in co-operation with Interessengemeinschaft Platte (an interest group for preserving precast concrete slab buildings). The historically-minded citizens were unable to save any of the few remaining permanent GDR precast concrete factories in Dresden's Johannstadt area as a memorial, but they managed to persuade the new owners to give them a 100 metre long and 15 metre wide site. The former porter's house of the cement factory has been renovated for use by the JOJO youth club. A special detail: O´Brien has transformed the unprepossessing building in to a moving light and shadow sculpture using wooden shutters: there are sliding, folding and tilting shutters. This simple and inexpensive means has given the building a new standing and new appearance. It acts as a sundial at the beginning of a time-trail, which zigzags over the property. On the overgrown space there are sandstone blocks from the old Karolahaus, a former sanatorium, porous artificial stones baked together from the rubble of Dresden's destroyed old town, and numbered test stones of various concrete mixtures. The first precast slabs produced in the factories can be found, model IW 66 and the many versions of residential building system 1970 (WBS 70) with its blue glazed tiles, red leaves and concrete reliefs. All elements of socialist home construction are arrayed on the overgrown site and tell the story of a utopian vision: "an apartment for everyone, a home for everyone". Finally, there is a photographic documentary of the history of the factory on the walls of the concrete silo. A quick look around reveals the life-size results: The buildings of the Johannstadt area become prominent exhibits for the micromuseum.
O´Briens buildings and art always provide special insight as well. They often seem to be models or experiments. They may be small, but they are universally applicable. This applies to his "microlight machine", which was installed on the market square in Schwerin, as part of the city's 2002 Summer of Culture. A two-storey wooden framework with a floor area of 9m², which acted as a gentle play of shadows during the day and as a light sculpture at night. The mobile wooden structure is reminiscent of the classical cart of Thespis, but the star of the microlight museum is light, and not a human actor. O´Brien's Trojan horses conquer another city. The microlight machine added a new dimension to the market square in Schwerin both by day and by night.
The Irishman's Trojan horses have proved to be extremely intelligent and adaptable creatures. O´Brien seems to have found the ideal solution for the city storehouse in Jena. He can install his self-sufficient micromodules in the preserved half-timber house (built in 1385, extended in 1435) without changing the physical substance of the building. His information implants even have their own air conditioning and heating system, which means that there is no need for extensive technical or structural changes to the old storehouse. The similarity to the development of the historic building is striking: the rear extension of the half-timbered storehouse has one heated room, the so-called Bohlenraum: a house in a house. In O´Brien's new wooden rooms will be used for exhibitions on the city, its history and institutions. And instead of the lost facade, an autonomous, two-layer hologram facade will beam the contents of the city storehouse to the passer's by on the market square and reflect the history of the city famous for its glass and optical products. That would no longer be a small project.
Text: Ira Mazzoni
Translation to English: Brendan Bleheen
Deutsche Bauzeitung db November 2002-12-02
Bildunterschriften:
1 Each visitor can piece together their own image of Kästner from letters, newspaper extracts and photographs.
2 There are "clues" to Kästner's life and work in every drawer.
3 The multimedia nucleus with its columns (currently six) is constantly in motion by day.
4 The modules can be closed to form a self-sufficient little house in the evenings.
5 Ground plan of Villa Augustin with the exhibition room.
6 The nucleus will one day be surrounded by thirteen columns.
7 The folding chairs are an invitation to the reader to sit down and browse at their leisure.
8 The largest exhibits are the hat, coat and typewriter of the world famous author.
9,10 Expert craftsmanship: All details, including the lighting were designed by the architect, with the able assistance of the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau workshop.
11 "Instruction manual" for the museum
12 When visitors the coloured drawers, they run the risk of losing track of time.
13,14 For the architect, Ruairí O'Brien, there is no distinction between disciplines. As an all-rounder he initiated the micro open-air museum in Johannstadt in Dresden to the memory of one of the last cast concrete slab factories of the GDR.
15 Designed for the Summer of Culture in Schwerin: The microlight machine, where light is performed instead of theatre as was the case in its historical precursor, the Thespis cart.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
