thegreeneyl

In April 2017 the new permanent exhibition opened at Chorin Abbey in the Barnim region of Brandenburg: the matter of the monument in space, image and sound.

On his first visit to the abbey ruins, Karl Friedrich Schinkel developed here, in exemplary fashion, the foundations of monument preservation. He approached the subject in a series of drawings documenting the abbey in its ruinous state at the time. Here, for the first time, the decay of a building and the conservation of that state were considered worth preserving.

In their dramaturgy, Schinkel’s drawings approach the abbey like a wanderer who first sees the complex from afar, embedded in the greenery of the Barnim landscape, and then moves ever closer while observing the object. Via façade studies and floor plans, the documentation finally reaches the level of detail.

Schinkel’s drawings, and with them his engagement with monument preservation, are shown in a permanent exhibition in the “Old Brewhouse” in Chorin. The sequence of the drawings follows Schinkel’s dramaturgy of the wanderer. As visitors look more closely, the drawings are increasingly backlit and, as if by magic, an audio track informs them about the historical background of Schinkel’s work. Further information is provided by the media technology embedded in the monolithic showcase.

Team

Internship at thegreeneyl, Berlin
Willy Sengewald
Frédéric Eyl
Gunnar Green
Dominik Schumacher

Photographs by thegreeneyl