Meeting with Christian Fuhrmeister, Jacek Purchla and Magdalena Łanuszka

Professors Christian Fuhrmeister and Jacek Purchla talk to Dr. Magdalena Łanuszka.

No other land but today’s Poland was an area of a great spatial experiment in the creation of the German Lebensraum. The ICC brand new book provides—for the first time—the most complete overview of the architectural heritage left there behind by the Third Reich. Its complexity will be discussed among Professors Christian Fuhrmeister (ZI, Munich), Jacek Purchla (ICC, Kraków), and Dr. Magdalena Łanuszka (ICC, Kraków).

The book collects texts by 19 eminent Polish and German scholars, and highlights various ways the German spatial experiment was implemented in both present Polish territories belonging to Germany before the war and the areas of the conquered Polish Republic, which were either incorporated directly into the Reich or formed the General Government. An experiment, which spanned all architectural scales: from the “model province” to the “ideal German city in the East”, the “model village” and “model apartment for a German family”.

Some plans were implemented, others remained on paper. The authors investigate the sources and meaning of structures, addressing projects such as Ordensburg in Złocieniec (Krössinsee) in West Pomerania – a training centre for new Nazi elites made to resemble a Teutonic castle – or Eichenkamp near Gliwice (Gleiwitz) – a model settlement for SA and SS officers which introduced the German oak not only in its name. Many of designs entailed symbolic violence in order for example to transform Poznań (Posen) into a “new administrative and cultural centre of the German East”, create a “new German city of Warschau” or “restore” Kraków (Krakau) to its “ancient Germanness” and change it into Nuremberg of the East.



Meeting in English took place on Thursday, May 20th, 2021, at 19.00 on the ICC profile on Facebook.