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On the threshold of Ka-Be: architectural history in the shadow of the death camps
Inaugural Lecture I The internationally best-known expert on the construction history of the Auschwitz concentration camp Robert Jan van Pelt takes up his one-semester DAAD visiting professorship at the University of Kassel
We cordially invite you to attend the inaugural lecture
In the Campus Center of the University of Kassel, Moritzstraße 18, Lecture Hall 6
Digital Lifestream via: http://www.uni-kassel.de/go/holzbaracke
Robert van Pelt's research has been published in numerous languages, he has developed the strategy for the development of the UNESCO World Heritage Site there, was a key witness in the trial of Holocaust denier David Irving and, as a result, has developed the methodology of forensic architectural research. Most recently, he dealt with the global history of the wooden barracks and the concept of "Jewish space". He is architectural advisor to the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center and Professor of Architectural History at Waterloo University, Canada.
In his inaugural lecture for his DAAD guest professorship at the University of Kassel in the winter semester 2021/22, he will outline his personal approach to his field of research, the following lecture series is dedicated to the three-hundred-year history of the wooden barrack.
Lectures on the wooden barrack
Every Thursday 18:00 from 28.10.
In the Campus Center of the University of Kassel, Moritzstraße 18, Lecture Hall 3
Digital: http://www.uni-kassel.de/go/holzbaracke
The wooden barrack - almost completely ignored in the usual architectural historiography - is a universal building type of modernism that emerged from globalization processes and is at the same time a tool of globalization. The origins of the barrack date back to the 17th century. Among other things, Austro-Hungarian military practices, American timber construction, British colonialism, German standardization and industrialization, pandemics, the two world wars and the Holocaust have all left their mark on it. The barrack is based on globalized processes of knowledge production, manufacture and use. It is an extremely efficient product that can be produced quickly with the simplest of means and unskilled labor, is versatile and universally usable and mobile. It is therefore the prototype of modern spatial production par excellence. In a radical way, it embodies and addresses internationality with a universal principle.
In honour of Robert van Pelts, the University of Kassel is organizing the symposium Denkmal-Kontroversen über umstrittene Gedenkorte in Kassel
Thursday 21.10.2021 - Saturday 23.10.2021
With a city walk and eight discussions and debates on Former German Colonial School / Mulang Village / M***apotheke / Former Kassel Gestapo Headquarters / War Memorial / Karl Branner Bridge / HalitPlatz / Obelisk
Detailed program and lifestream:
http://www.uni-kassel.de/go/denkmalkontroversen