Yearbook of Prussian Cultural Heritage 2014 published
Press release from 01/26/2016
The 50th volume of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Yearbook has just been published, looking back on the year 2014. Internal and external authors address topics that concern the Foundation in numerous articles.
In 2014, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie underwent a multi-year refurbishment. One focus is therefore on the architectural icon and its historical surroundings. Two contributions to the colloquium "Form versus Function. Mies and the museum": architectural theorist Fritz Neumeyer from the Free University of Berlin celebrated the Neue Nationalgalerie as a unique spatial experience and Alexander Schwarz from David Chipperfield Architects presented conceptual considerations for the basic restoration. Maite Kallweit also looks back and sees the Tiergarten as a topography of the avant-garde.
A second important theme of the year was once again the development of the Humboldt Forum. This time, the focus was on the provenance of the non-European collections of the National Museums in Berlin. The Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) agreed on basic positions, which have now been printed for the first time. Director Klaas Ruitenbeek uses the example of "Imperial China" to explain what the Museum of Asian Art will offer in the new Berlin Palace and provides an insight into the plans of architect and Pritzker Prize winner Wang Shu for "his" space.
Also in this volume: The Berlin State Library acquires an important collection from the Schott publishing house archive. Frank Schneider, long-time director of the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt, writes about the relationships between publishers and composers, which are now being researched and offer new insights for musicology. No less spectacular is a trip by the director of the Ibero-American Institute, Barbara Göbel, who brought historical recordings of the ritual chants, some of which had fallen into oblivion, back to Mexico for the Cora and Huichol. Konrad Theodor Preuss had recorded this sonorous legacy during his expedition (1905-1907). This fascinating legacy, which bears witness to the richness of the oral art of these peoples and the profundity of their ritual traditions, was stored in the Berlin Phonogram Archive of the Ethnological Museum.
On the subject of cultural heritage protection, Karin Pütt, research associate at the Syrian Heritage Archive Project, describes how Syrian cultural artefacts are being documented at the Museum of Islamic Art with the support of the Federal Foreign Office, thus preserving them for posterity despite all the destruction in the war-torn country.
Jahrbuch Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Vol. L / 2014, Berlin: Gebr. Mann Ver-lag, 2015; 341 pages with 135 illustrations, 101 of which are in colour; ISBN 978-3-7861-2767-3, ISSN 0342-0124; price: €35.00. Review copies are available from Gebr.