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Neue Ausstellung: Plantstory - Eine Erzählung über Architektur, Natur und nationalsozialistische...
New exhibition: Plantstory - A story about architecture, nature and National Socialist...
Event by: Pilecki-Institut
Location: Pariser Platz 4A, Pariser Platz 4A, Berlin - Mitte
Tickets: Get tickets
About event
Plantstory - A story about architecture, nature and National Socialist colonial policy
Time: Thursday, October 30th, 7 p.m.
Place: Pilecki-Institut Berlin, Pariser Platz 4A, 10117 Berlin
Registration: https://forms.gle/JfQzhSmZ7DTm9xjd9
It's time again for a new special exhibition. We would like to warmly invite you to the opening of “Plantstory: A story about architecture, nature and National Socialist colonial policy”. Already shown in three cities in Poland, it was now high time to present it to the people of Berlin. An anything but ordinary exhibition that is as diverse as its name suggests - promised!
Conceived by Exercising Modernity graduate and scholarship holder Barbara Nawrocka, it is also a small homage to our Exercising Modernity program in its sixth year of existence.
The exhibition focuses on the history of a residential area in Ciechanów, Poland, which was built during the German occupation in the Second World War. Similar settlements, colloquially referred to as “Berlinki” or poniemieckie (“post-German”), can still be found in many cities in the country today. The exhibition curator and architect Barbara Nawrocka looks at this architectural heritage from the perspective of nature and landscape and shows how flora, history, politics and collective memory intertwine.
The quarter was conceived in the early 1940s as a so-called garden suburb - a settlement for German officials and their families in the capital of the newly created administrative district of Zichenau. The concept took up the utopian, originally progressive ideas of the garden city movement around the British social reformer Ebenezer Howard, but here became a tool of National Socialist colonization and propaganda.
In this way, Nawrocka spans a wide, eclectic range: reflections on the contradictory, at the same time modernist and reactionary nature of National Socialism meet reflections on the subjectivity of nature, which are reminiscent of Bruno Latour, and the plants symbolically have their own voice lend.
After stops in Gdynia, Ciechanów and Wrocław, where the exhibition was shown in the Muzeum Architektury, the only architectural museum in Poland, Plantstoria received great attention from experts. It was described as one of the most impressive projects of last season in architecture magazines such as Architektura Murator and Architecture Snob. We are even more pleased to be able to present it to the Berlin audience.
More about Exercising Modernity
Exercising Modernity is an interdisciplinary, intellectual and artistic exchange program on the history of modernity in Central and Eastern Europe, which has existed since 2019, with a focus on art and architecture. Originally conceived as a German-Polish-Israeli cooperation project, the thematic focus was expanded over time to include countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and others. The aim of the program is to discuss the history and modernist legacy of Poland and Eastern Europe in the 20th century against the backdrop of parallel global modernization processes. The program complements the Bloodlands reading of this region, which has become increasingly influential in recent years, with an affirmative reflection on its contributions to the global history of modernity.
Previous speakers at Exercising Modernity include Marci Shore, Jan C. Behrends, Martin Kohlrausch, Robert Jan van Pelt, Zvi Efrat, Ákos Moravánszky, Przemysław Czapliński, Michał Łuczewski and Karolina Wigura. From the beginning, the cooperation partners included the Favoriten Haus - White City Center in Tel Aviv, later also the Triennale der Moderne, DOM Publishers, the Festival Weekend Architektury in Gdynia and other organizations and initiatives.
Particular attention is paid to culture, especially architecture, as a resonance space in which central social processes, perspectives, ambitions and hopes intersect and are reflected. Exercising Modernity also promotes the critical examination of historical and contemporary narratives about Central and Eastern Europe and questions classic political and geographical boundaries between “East” and “West” in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The central elements of the project are the interdisciplinary Exercising Modernity Academy and the Cultural Scholarship Program, which is organized annually and is aimed at graduates of the academy. In addition, Exercising Modernity includes a program of public events - including lectures, discussions, conferences and exhibitions - carried out in cooperation with local and international partners.
Time: Thursday, October 30th, 7 p.m.
Place: Pilecki-Institut Berlin, Pariser Platz 4A, 10117 Berlin
Registration: https://forms.gle/JfQzhSmZ7DTm9xjd9
It's time again for a new special exhibition. We would like to warmly invite you to the opening of “Plantstory: A story about architecture, nature and National Socialist colonial policy”. Already shown in three cities in Poland, it was now high time to present it to the people of Berlin. An anything but ordinary exhibition that is as diverse as its name suggests - promised!
Conceived by Exercising Modernity graduate and scholarship holder Barbara Nawrocka, it is also a small homage to our Exercising Modernity program in its sixth year of existence.
The exhibition focuses on the history of a residential area in Ciechanów, Poland, which was built during the German occupation in the Second World War. Similar settlements, colloquially referred to as “Berlinki” or poniemieckie (“post-German”), can still be found in many cities in the country today. The exhibition curator and architect Barbara Nawrocka looks at this architectural heritage from the perspective of nature and landscape and shows how flora, history, politics and collective memory intertwine.
The quarter was conceived in the early 1940s as a so-called garden suburb - a settlement for German officials and their families in the capital of the newly created administrative district of Zichenau. The concept took up the utopian, originally progressive ideas of the garden city movement around the British social reformer Ebenezer Howard, but here became a tool of National Socialist colonization and propaganda.
In this way, Nawrocka spans a wide, eclectic range: reflections on the contradictory, at the same time modernist and reactionary nature of National Socialism meet reflections on the subjectivity of nature, which are reminiscent of Bruno Latour, and the plants symbolically have their own voice lend.
After stops in Gdynia, Ciechanów and Wrocław, where the exhibition was shown in the Muzeum Architektury, the only architectural museum in Poland, Plantstoria received great attention from experts. It was described as one of the most impressive projects of last season in architecture magazines such as Architektura Murator and Architecture Snob. We are even more pleased to be able to present it to the Berlin audience.
More about Exercising Modernity
Exercising Modernity is an interdisciplinary, intellectual and artistic exchange program on the history of modernity in Central and Eastern Europe, which has existed since 2019, with a focus on art and architecture. Originally conceived as a German-Polish-Israeli cooperation project, the thematic focus was expanded over time to include countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and others. The aim of the program is to discuss the history and modernist legacy of Poland and Eastern Europe in the 20th century against the backdrop of parallel global modernization processes. The program complements the Bloodlands reading of this region, which has become increasingly influential in recent years, with an affirmative reflection on its contributions to the global history of modernity.
Previous speakers at Exercising Modernity include Marci Shore, Jan C. Behrends, Martin Kohlrausch, Robert Jan van Pelt, Zvi Efrat, Ákos Moravánszky, Przemysław Czapliński, Michał Łuczewski and Karolina Wigura. From the beginning, the cooperation partners included the Favoriten Haus - White City Center in Tel Aviv, later also the Triennale der Moderne, DOM Publishers, the Festival Weekend Architektury in Gdynia and other organizations and initiatives.
Particular attention is paid to culture, especially architecture, as a resonance space in which central social processes, perspectives, ambitions and hopes intersect and are reflected. Exercising Modernity also promotes the critical examination of historical and contemporary narratives about Central and Eastern Europe and questions classic political and geographical boundaries between “East” and “West” in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The central elements of the project are the interdisciplinary Exercising Modernity Academy and the Cultural Scholarship Program, which is organized annually and is aimed at graduates of the academy. In addition, Exercising Modernity includes a program of public events - including lectures, discussions, conferences and exhibitions - carried out in cooperation with local and international partners.