The book “Art meets University” primarily presents free-standing sculptures and facade decorations, which have a decisive influence on Darmstadt’s cityscape.
Technische Universität Darmstadt (publisher): Art meets university. Works of art at the Technical University of DarmstadtJustus von Liebig Verlag, 212 pages, many colored pictures
DARMSTADT – Two people met for the idea for this book. As Chancellor of the Technical University of Darmstadt, Manfred Efinger is also responsible for its cultural area and has been thinking for a long time about gathering the visual arts in a volume owned by the TU. Inge Lorenz “had already noticed earlier that there were reports about the TU collection to be read in the newspapers, but there was no publication about it,” she says.
The art historian Lorenz worked for the city of Darmstadt in the field of culture for many years, now, in retirement, she started working on such a catalog raisonné at the beginning of 2015. The research, also in archives, was time-consuming, but now the volume has been published by Justus von Liebig-Verlag in Darmstadt. And it is much more than “just” a directory of the sculptures and pictures owned by the TU, including a description of the facilities and exhibition work of the TU Art Forum, which was founded in 2016 by its director Julia Reichelt.
In 84 individual presentations, thanks to the individual descriptions by Inge Lorenz and excellent large-format photos by Thomas Ott, you can really get to know well-known art in Darmstadt’s public space on double pages. Because one understands: In the described free sculptures as in the so-called “art in construction” of TU buildings, even in the architectural sculptures of old university buildings, historical changes in the city in general are reflected – and that over 125 years.
In line with this history, Inge Lorenz has divided the book into two parts: here the campus in the center, there the campus on the Lichtwiese. Because in the city the beginnings are reflected, which initially lead from the historicism of the architectural sculptures on the old TU main building through the Art Nouveau on the former machine house to Nazi art that adorns two institute buildings from the 1930s. Then came the break of the war destruction – and the resurgence of a rich cultural scene in the city in the first post-war decades. It initially led to the TU’s art purchases being quite locally oriented for their new buildings in the city center. It was only for the gradually built campus on the outskirts of the city that construction began in 1969 that both local and international items were acquired. Today, the TU is again investing specifically in outdoor sculptures: in contemporary items that can be found both in the refurbished downtown campus and in the Lichtwiese.
Especially for the post-war decades, it seems consistent that Inge Lorenz is not only presenting works that are owned by the TU. The book title “Art meets University” also indicates that some of the outdoor sculptures discussed – for example on Erich-Ollenhauer-Allee – belong to the city of Darmstadt or the Hessian State Museum, but are inextricably linked to the adjacent buildings in a city center that had to and was allowed to grow again.
The importance of the coexistence of the work of art and its surroundings becomes immediately clear in Thomas Ott’s pictures, which can be found next to the texts. The focus is always on the work, but he has worked out the very different basic situations for TU art in open space: While in the city center it primarily sets the counterpoint to architecture or defines space situations, the Lichtwiese was on from the start the integration of art into the surrounding nature is important.
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