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The Week in Germany: Culture

April 13, 2007

Exhibits Put Daily Life in East Germany on Display

An exhibition which compellingly shows what everyday life was like in former communist East Germany is attracting much attention at the German Historical Museum in Berlin. Titled "Party Dictatorship and Everyday Life in the GDR" (German Democratic Republic), the show is on two floors of the historic Zeughaus (Carriage House) on Unter den Linden in Berlin, and in the adjoining I.M.Pei-designed tower.

Eighteen years having passed since the communist state's collapse, the exhibition seeks to put into perspective the reality of life in the former "workers' and peasants' state."

GDR flags, banners, badges and uniforms are displayed, along with everyday objects and artefacts which offer a glimpse of day-to-day existence in the once 17 million-strong socialist state.

Previously, the Zeughaus housed the East German "Museum for German History." When the communist state's 40 year-old history came to an abrupt end in 1989-90, the museum's collections, including a vast reservoir of documents relating to its 40-year-history plus paintings and sculptures, were inherited by the new all-German Historical Museum promoted by then chancellor Helmut Kohl in the early 1990s.

Clever Kiosk Makes a Comeback in Weimar

The K67 is still a place of communication in many Eastern European cities.

Meanwhile, another legacy of eastern Europe's communist past is being put to fresh use in Weimar.

A boxy plastic cabin known as K67, a paragon of socialist design, opened as a mini-art-gallery near the Bauhaus-University in the city of Weimar.

The project marks the 40th birthday of the K67, a glass-fibre kiosk which houses news-stands, parking attendants, chip fryers and lottery sellers in many cities. The colored modules can even be bolted together into larger pavilions.

The return of the K67 to Weimar also highlights the run-up to Documenta 12, a huge art event to be held in Germany this summer.

While the toy-style booths have been nearly forgotten in former East Germany, staff of the Bauhaus University of Weimar found their specimen in Poland, where it housed a key cutting shop, and put it up on a street outside the campus.

"These kiosks are places of communication in the eastern European cities," explained Markus Schlaffke, one of the organizers. That is the symbolic meaning of the booth in Weimar.

For several weeks, the kiosk will be used in installations and will also serve as an information booth on foreign student exchanges, with counselor Jana Mangold inside to tell students how to spend a semester abroad.

"The lightweight modular design was revolutionary," explained Schlaffke. "It's a milestone in 20th century design. There's even one in the Museum of Modern Art in New York."(dpa)

Links:

German Historical Museum

K67 Kiosk at the Weimar Bauhaus University

K67 Kiosk Shots - A K67 documentation site

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