After mentioning the changing names of the building, it seems it would be useful to offer a little summary:
1928-1945: IG-Farben-Haus
1945-1975: Farben Building (unofficial)
1975-1996: General Creighton W. Abrams Building (official name according to the US military based there)
Summer 2001: Poelzig Ensemble (suggested by Werber Meissner, the President of Johann Wolfgang University)
From 2001 - Poelzig Ensemble, IG-Farben-Haus (no official decision was reached)
Other names have included "Poelzig Bau" (Poelzig Bulding) and "IG-Farben-Hochhaus" (IG Farben Highrise) and so far there is still confusion about what the building should be called. Most university literature now mentions the 'IG-Farben-Haus', but some documents claim the 'official' name is 'Poelzig-Bau'.
Wednesday, 25 April 2012
The Name Game
There is a very interesting discussion panel happening at the Guggenheim website at the moment: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/interact/online-forum/the-name-game/session-1
It is all about names. According to the moderator Mark Abley "This Forum will be about the power of names, the ways we allow them or ask them to define us, and their vexed relationship with the rest of language as well as the world beyond words."
Robert Jones is a branding consultant on the panel and mentions the importance of name changes: "So our view is that the fact of a name change can get people to stop and think again; the content of the name change can give a clue about what to think; and changing what people think can of course change what they do."
That could well be relevant to the name changes of the IG-Farben-Haus. How would the name 'Poelzig-Bau' change people's perceptions of it. Instead of bearing the name of a perpetrator corporation implicated in slave labour, the house would be named for its acclaimed architect. Would they then be less likely to think of the building's (and Germany's) difficult past and work through it?
It would have been rather useful if this forum had happened a month ago so I could have mentioned it in my dissertation!
It is all about names. According to the moderator Mark Abley "This Forum will be about the power of names, the ways we allow them or ask them to define us, and their vexed relationship with the rest of language as well as the world beyond words."
Robert Jones is a branding consultant on the panel and mentions the importance of name changes: "So our view is that the fact of a name change can get people to stop and think again; the content of the name change can give a clue about what to think; and changing what people think can of course change what they do."
That could well be relevant to the name changes of the IG-Farben-Haus. How would the name 'Poelzig-Bau' change people's perceptions of it. Instead of bearing the name of a perpetrator corporation implicated in slave labour, the house would be named for its acclaimed architect. Would they then be less likely to think of the building's (and Germany's) difficult past and work through it?
It would have been rather useful if this forum had happened a month ago so I could have mentioned it in my dissertation!
Friday, 13 April 2012
Dauerausstellung
http://www.init-design.de/ausstellungen.html?id=6
Two days before the university's ceremonial opening of the building, this exhibition was opened inside the IG-Farben-Haus. It chronicles the house's past on glass plates, in both English and German. According to the designers, the glass plates bring transparency to the building's complex past.
Was the creation and installation of the exhibition a sign that the university wasn't afraid of its past? As Schröder tried to encourage Germans to engage with the past but not be scared of or obsessed by it, it does seem like this was an attempt to live that neue Unbefangenkeit (new impartiality). The history of the area is given and not covered up. The whole history of the building, and not just the Nazi connections is displayed. However, unfortunately it's not clear from what I can find online whether the RAF bombings of the 1970s are covered, or at what depth.
But why was it opened two days before the moving-in celebrations? Was it to give the press time to write up informed (by what the university wanted them to see) background pieces for the day of the celebrations? Or was it to move focus away from the troubled past of the building and onto the future?
Two days before the university's ceremonial opening of the building, this exhibition was opened inside the IG-Farben-Haus. It chronicles the house's past on glass plates, in both English and German. According to the designers, the glass plates bring transparency to the building's complex past.
Was the creation and installation of the exhibition a sign that the university wasn't afraid of its past? As Schröder tried to encourage Germans to engage with the past but not be scared of or obsessed by it, it does seem like this was an attempt to live that neue Unbefangenkeit (new impartiality). The history of the area is given and not covered up. The whole history of the building, and not just the Nazi connections is displayed. However, unfortunately it's not clear from what I can find online whether the RAF bombings of the 1970s are covered, or at what depth.
But why was it opened two days before the moving-in celebrations? Was it to give the press time to write up informed (by what the university wanted them to see) background pieces for the day of the celebrations? Or was it to move focus away from the troubled past of the building and onto the future?
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