memorial Archive | gewerkdesign

Münchner Platz Memorial, external view

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After his release from prison 1934, the communist artist Fritz Schulze (1903 – 1942) created the linocut „Gefängnisrundgang“, Prison Tour.

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Background

As a former place of trial, a prison and an execution site, the Münchner Platz Memorial in Dresden commemorates the victims of political criminal justice during the National Socialist dictatorship, the Soviet occupation, and the early GDR. Since 2012, the memorial presents to its visitors the permanent exhibition Verurteilt. Inhaftiert. Hingerichtet. Politische Justiz in Dresden, which is dedicated to the role of the judicary during 1933-1945 and 1945-1957, and to the events on this particular site. A visitor information and signage system on the grounds and in the surrounding buildings, designed by gewerkdesign, provides information about the history of the different buildings on this site, thus marking historical traces and pointing out where the events described actually took place. The 19 text and picture panels report on the function of the specific buildings at the time, on how the memorial came about, and on the biographies of the convicts. All texts are in both German and English.

Portfolio / Range of Services

Design, planning and implementation of the visual visitor information system and reference system, supervising and coordinating the production of the graphics and printings, brochures, preparation / participation of the commissioning process

Details

• Opening: August 2021
• Where: Münchner Platz Memorial, FDresden
• Client: Stiftung Sächsische FGedenkstätten
• 5800 m²

Related projects

• Ökodorf Brodowin, Brandenburg
• Berlin Wall Trail, Berlin
• Hannover Garden Region, Hannover

Design process

Team

• Jens Imig
• Birgit Schlegel
• Costanza Rossi

Print production
• Hertzer GmbH

Photography 
• Münchner Platz Memorial Dresden: Ellen Schwalbe

Entrance to the former prison, Bautzen Memorial

Photograph of a prison cell

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Background

On September 19th, the third and last part of Bautzen Memorial’s permanent exhibition »Haft unterm Hakenkreuz Bautzen I und Bautzen II 1933-1945« about the National Socialist penal system was inaugurated. gewerkdesign has been involved in the different stages of Bautzen Memorial’s remodelling since 1997, having created the design for the exhibition parts about Bautzen as a Stasi prison and as a special detention camp during the Soviet occupation. The parts are chronologically arranged on the three stories of the building. While the architecture of the building was mostly left in its original state, a few of the rooms were rearranged: Their contemplative exhibition design provides an opportunity for the visitors to concentrate on the exhibitions and on the information given. Creative highlight: the rooms are furnished with a free transformable, modular system of wooden shelves – elegantly honouring the complex history of the memorial site. The shelf compartments’ proportions are similar to the former prison cells, thus referring to the site itself and its architecture. In order to physically and semantically guide the visitors through the multi-layered area, gewerkdesign created a signage system and, together with Lotsenhaus Media, a media guide.

Portfolio / Range of Services: Exhibition design and planning, implementation planning, concept development for the display, exhibition production, project management and consulting project development, exhibition and media graphics, media guide, facsimile production