Cultural History

At a time when extreme climatic phenomena, air quality, and industrial impact are among the most pressing issues on the public agenda, the dramatic change in the climate has led to the realization that capitalism has a destructive effect on the environment. Our lifestyle must be reevaluated in order to positively impact both present and future.

Few regions have undergone a more rapid and radical development than the American West in the mid-twentieth century. The modern infrastructure, technical innovations, spectacular architecture and new leisure activities have been recorded on postcards with lively pictures in vivid colours. This volume shows 500 selected linen postcards from the America of the 1930s to 1950s with an incomparable wealth of detail.

The ensemble with its prominent twin towers that Egon Eiermann (1904–1970) built in Frankfurt am Main for the Italian office machinery company Olivetti, was the Karlsruhe architect’s last major project. His priorities lay in the slender form, derived from the task, the construction and the material to create a characteristic silhouette.

In the last five decades the popularity of outsider art – works by artists working outside of the art establishment – has grown exponentially. Museums, galleries, and the public worldwide have embraced these powerful works. Victor Keen’s Collection at the Bethany Mission Gallery, Philadelphia, is one of the leading outsider art collections in the U.S.

Founded in the context of social movements of the late 1960s, The Leslie-Lohman Museum is dedicated to preserving art that speaks to the LGBTQ experience and fostering the artists who create it. Queer Holdings aims to reclaim scholarship from a queer perspective by surveying 200 works from the Museum’s permanent collection. A selection of essays by scholars, artists and archivists, explore the Museum’s possible futures by tracing its visual, cultural, and political ...

At the age of seventeen Georg Forster embark ed on a voyage around the world with the famous Captain James Cook. Shortly after his return in 1775 the explorer met the open-minded Prince Franz of Dessau and his consort Louise in London.They returned home with a rich collection of objects, as the unique Wörlitz South Seas Collection proves to this day.

The “creative reconstruction” of damaged buildings was an important topic in architecture after the Second World War, particularly in Bavaria. The Munich architect Hans Döllgast (1891–1974) was one of the pioneers of  this development. His most important achievements include the repairs to the Alte Pinakothek, the Basilica of St. Bonifaz and the main municipal cemeteries.

The Bauhaus originated in Weimar and returns to a new building there in the spring of 2019. In the newly built Bauhaus Museum Weimar the treasures of the world’s oldest Bauhaus collection will be shown as an ensemble. This volume does not only present design icons, however; it also provides by means of a large number of additional objects a glimpse behind the façade of the Bauhaus myth.