"Vogel Phoenix. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation" - the book celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
Press release from 11/26/2007
With the "Vogel Phoenix", a richly illustrated reader, the SPK is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a look "from the outside" at the variety of themes and projects. Companions from the world of cultural policy, colleagues in the arts and sciences, in museums and libraries, friends and patrons, architects and journalists present their view of the foundation. They report on their experiences with the Foundation, its projects and problems and recall people and events of the past 50 years. Gerhart Baum and Ernst Benda, Horst Bredekamp, David Chipperfield, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Wolfgang Frühwald, Horst Köhler, Norbert Lammert, Christoph Markschies, Michael Naumann, Bernd Neumann, Hermann Parzinger, Norman Rosenthal, Peter Raue, Günther Rühle, Wolfgang Schäuble, Peter-Klaus Schuster, Christoph Stölzl and Christina Weiss are among the contributors - interviews, essays, memories, speeches, confessions, songs of praise and lamentations.
Her contributions are devoted to the position of the Prussian Cultural Heritage in German cultural federalism, questions of capital city culture, national and European cultural heritage, patronage and private cultural sponsorship. The development of the Foundation in the past (reconstruction and reunification), present (Museum Island) and future (e.g. Humboldt Forum) is examined and evaluated. However, praise from the Foundation and others, as well as self-promotion, should not be completely omitted: The volume begins, for example, with the address given by Federal President Horst Köhler at the Foundation's 50th anniversary celebrations on 7 September 2007; it also recalls the achievements of previous presidents and directors-general and offers a portrait gallery of the current senior staff as well as a chronicle of the most important events of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation's first fifty years.
A detailed appendix with a descriptive overview of the collections and institutes with information on visits, use and enquiries provides a reference guide to the Foundation and its facilities. The volume is richly illustrated and contains some surprises, especially in the section in which the directors of the institutions present their personal favourite or problem child from the collections according to the principle of a "Director's Choice". It shows that it is not the canon of masterpieces that has always been known, but the eye of the people who bear responsibility in the foundation that determines the face of the foundation.
"Vogel Phoenix. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation"
Edited by Klaus-Dieter Lehmann
Berlin University Press, Berlin 2007, 397 pages with 48 colour and 120 black and white illustrations, hardcover, 48 euros
ISBN 978-3-940432-13-1
The occasion for the book - 50 years of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
25 July 2007 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the German Bundestag's decision to pass the law establishing the Foundation. It contains regulations on the transfer of art and cultural assets (archive, library and museum holdings as well as scientific collections) and the associated properties, which were no longer owned by the Prussian state after its dissolution. The assets entrusted to the foundation are to be preserved, maintained, supplemented and researched "for the interests of the general public in science and education and for cultural exchange between peoples". In recognition of the special national, nationwide significance of these collections, their coherence is to be preserved and the random fragmentation of the holdings caused by the war is to be eliminated. The structure was federalist from the outset - with the participation of some, from 1975 all and from 1992 also the new federal states - and was based on the predominant federal interest.
Five institutions are brought together under the umbrella of the Foundation: the National Museums in Berlin, the Berlin State Library, the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage, the Ibero-American Institute and the State Institute for Music Research with the Museum of Musical Instruments. They form a collection cosmos of visual and textual culture that ranges from the origins of cultural development to contemporary art and encompasses all regions of the world. Today, the foundation is one of the largest cultural institutions in the world.