Tag: Haus der Geschichte

In an attempt to be topical since today is a General Election, here’s a ‘wahlurne’, or ballot box, which was used in German elections on 20 April 1947. After the years of Nazi rule, it must have been something of a relief to be able to vote once again in a democratic election.

And that’s all I’m going to say about today’s General Election…..

I had wondered why there were so many staff at the UK exhibition at the Haus der Geschichte, but having seen the exhibits, I’m sure that many were actually security guards. Given some other little incidents at German museums recently, this seems a very wise precaution. HM Queen Elizabeth II has lent this 1714 State Crown from the Royal Collection, first used for the crowning of King George I. This is of course highly relevant to the museum, since King George I was German, the first Monarch from the House of Hanover.

Only the empty gold frame of the crown now remains as the stones were used in a lighter replacement for Queen Victoria, so King William IV was the last to use it as his Coronation. The crown was discarded by the Royal Family and it somehow came into the hands of the Amherst family who placed it on long-term loan at the Museum of London. Later acquired by the Prince of Brunei, it was returned back to the Royal Collection as a generous donation, with apparently an estimated value of a little over £500,000, but it’s of a much more important historical value.

The crown is usually on display at the Tower of London, where I assume it will be returned after this temporary exhibition ends. But what a rather lovely item to send to Bonn, although its importance was perhaps not as clearly described as it could have been on the small information panel at the museum.

Part of the exhibition on British-German relations at the special UK exhibition being held at the Haus der Geschichte. The curators seem to have amused themselves in finding cultural references to how the British view the Germans and vice versa.

The light-hearted approach from British and German newspapers…..

This is one of the girders from the collapsed World Trade Center which was destroyed during the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey made available 2,200 of these pieces of steel to be used in museums and public buildings around the world. I’m not sure that a list exists of where they currently all are, but I must have seen tens of them over the years.

Eleven Germans were killed during the attack and this is the museum’s memorial to them.

I remember when an artist wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin, perhaps one of the largest art installations that there has been in Germany. The artist was Christo, who spent 24 years planning this project and being turned down on numerous occasions. His persistence is incredible and he went to speak to every one of the 350 deputies in a bid to convince them to support the project. He was able to win a majority over by promising that it was simply an art project, that it was self-funding and that all of the materials were recyclable.

I’ve never given much thought to this project, but I always thought the covering was something like a thin and lightweight fabric. This though would have likely torn and looked ridiculous, so it was more of a metallic covering that was used. It didn’t come cheaply, as it cost over $15 million at the time, a significant sum of money. The artist has a policy that an artwork is never repeated and it can’t last for more than two weeks, so that was how long the covering remained over the building. The photo above shows a small piece of material which was used in the covering, which is “a thick woven polypropylene fabric with an aluminium surface”.

The covering was unveiled on 24 June 1995 and it took 90 professional climbers and 120 installation workers to complete the work. The artist funded the project by selling original drawings and models, with no sponsorship money or public funds used. The photos on the artist’s web-site show just how amazing this must have looked.

And what it looked like….