4 November 2016

Architecture in Archives
The Collection of the Akademie der Künste
Book Presentation, Sunday 13 November 2016

For the first time, with Architecture in Archives, the Akademie der Künste in Berlin presents a printed overview of the archives and collections of architects, engineers, landscape architects, architectural photographers, and critics. With almost 1,000 illustrations, this publication presents a selection of around half a million drawings and plans, photographs, models, and written documents. The volume is published by DOM publishers in a German and an English edition. The book launch is on 13 November 2016 in the Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz.

Thus, this volume covers about 250 years of architecture history, with a main focus on the twentieth century. The editor and director of the architecture archives, Eva-Maria Barkhofen presents all 71 archives and 80 collections with the biographies of the authors, and describes in detail the nature and extent of the collections. Through this book, she also provides a lively overview of the history of the architecture archives. Since the founding year of 1696, master builders have been members of the Berlin Academy of Arts. The earliest testimony in the archive dates back to the end of the eighteenth century and documents the activities of teachers and students of the Academy. It was only under the post-war president of the West Berlin academy – the architect Hans Scharoun – that architect legacies were included in the Archives. The history of architecture is comprehensively and diversely documented in this publication; beginning with the Prussian period, through utopian drawings from the Expressionist period and plans for the New Construction of the 1920s, to the works of the architects who had to emigrate after 1933. Even the architecture after the Second World War up to present-day is represented with copious archives.

Unexpected finds and surprising connections were not omitted during the research for this book. These hidden treasures now emerge, revealing creative processes or telling stories behind the stories. Many of the many hitherto unpublished discoveries set the mood for investigating the collections and stimulate exploration and exhibition. For all those interested in architecture, this publication connects the diversity and vitality of the history of architecture to the artists who created it.

Event announcement

Sunday 13 November, 11 am
Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin
Book presentation with Michael Bräuer, Director of the Section Architecture, Werner Heegewaldt, Director of the Archives, Philipp Meuser, DOM publishers, and Eva-Maria Barkhofen, Head of the Architecture Archive and Editor.
Free admission

Publication

Architecture in Archives. The Collection of the Akademie der Künste
Eva-Maria Barkhofen on behalf of the Akademie der Künste (ed.)
Akademie der Künste, Archive / DOM publishers, Berlin, 2016
560 pp., 906 ill., hardcover
ISBN 978-3-86922-552-4, € 68

Date of publication November 2016

Reviewer’s copy request
gisela graf communications
Gisela Graf, T +49 (0)761 791 99 09, contact@gisela-graf.com


Contact
Dr. Eva-Maria Barkhofen, Head Architecture Archive, Tel. +49 (0)30 20057-1625, barkhofen@adk.de