Warburg models exhibited at Guttormgaards arkiv, Blaker gamle meieri, Norway, May 2021. Photo: Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK.   

Warburg-modeller på Blaker

29. mai — 6. juni 2021

Åpningstider:

29.—30. mai, kl. 12—17

2. juni, kl. 16—19

5.—6. juni, kl. 12—17

Morgenbladets kritiker Gaute Brochmann beskrev utstillingen som en “svært vakker” inngang til Aby Warburgs og Guttorm Guttormsgaards kunstneriske universer: “For noen vil det å bevege seg inn i krysningspunktet mellom disse to menneskene være som å bivåne et slags kosmisk kaos. For andre er det en kunsthistorisk begivenhet.” Les Brochmanns beretning om “en tur på nasjonalmeieriet,” en av “Norges aller mest særegne kunstinstitusjoner”!

I Kunstavisen skrev Kjetil Røed om en “stimulerende kobling”: “Det er jo åpenbart en grunn til at utstillingen legges til nettopp Blaker og denne samlingen: Guttormsgaard var en samler og historieforteller i tråd med Warburg. […] Warburg, som lenge har vært en yndet figur for kjennerne, kan med stor fordel også bli et kjent navn for et større publikum, siden hans begrep om kunsthistorie bryter ut av de rigide kunstfortellingene vi vanligvis opererer med.”

(English text below)

Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg (1926) and Planetarium (1930), Hamburg.

Model makers Nora Kilstad/ Cathrine Tønseth Sundem and Max Svendsen. Photo: Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK.

Sectional model of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg (1926).

Showing (left to right) entrance sequence from street; central reception hall; four stack rooms arranged vertically above; and the combined reading and lecture room facing the garden. Plan engraved into to base of the model to show the rest of the arrangement.

Model makers Nora Kilstad/Cathrine Tønseth Sundem. Photo: Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK.

Planetarium (1930)

Model maker: Max Svendsen. Photo: Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK.

Thames House, Westminster (1934), right, the Imperial Institute Building, Kensington (1952), left, and the Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, Bloomsbury (1958), centre.

Thames House, Millbank (1934) and the Imperial Institute Building, Kensington (1952), the first and second homes of the Warburg Institute in London after its emigration from Hamburg in 1933.

Plan model of Thames House in pink shows in detail the interiors designed for the Institute by the avant-garde architects Tecton, with shelves and furniture moved from Hamburg.

Model maker Pål Sanchez-Paredes. Photo: Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK.

Cottage at Bromley, outside London (1935).

This private house (unbuilt) was designed by Tecton for the director and assistant director of the Warburg Institute, Fritz Saxl and Gertrud Bing. The building was organised around two scholarly lives that were at once independent and intimately collaborative.

Model maker Pernille Ahlgren. Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK.

Cottage at Bromley, outside London (1935).

This private house (unbuilt) was designed by Tecton for the director and assistant director of the Warburg Institute, Fritz Saxl and Gertrud Bing. The building was organised around two scholarly lives that were at once independent and intimately collaborative.

Model maker Pernille Ahlgren. Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK.

The present home of the Warburg Institute at Woburn Square, Bloombury (1958) was designed to echo the first organisation of the library in Hamburg. The building is undergoing a full renovation from 2021–2024.

Model makers Amalie Elvegård/Silje Seim/Karina Tang. Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK.

The present home of the Warburg Institute at Woburn Square, Bloombury (1958) was designed to echo the first organisation of the library in Hamburg. The building is undergoing a full renovation from 2021–2024.

Model makers Amalie Elvegård/Silje Seim/Karina Tang. Tor S. Ulstein / KUNSTDOK.

Arkitektur, interiører og teknologiske systemer var av avgjørende betydning for miljøet rundt kunsthistorikeren Aby Warburg (1866–1929) og hans enorme boksamling. Da forskningsinstituttet han grunnla i hjembyen Hamburg flyttet til London i 1933, hadde staben vært involvert i to store byggeprosjekter: Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg (1926) ble skreddersydd for boksamlingen på nabotomten til kunsthistorikerens egen bolig, og Warburg var dypt involvert i transformasjonen av et vanntårn til et Planetarium (1930), der han demonstrerte sine banebrytende teorier om den antikke verdens overlevelse i moderniteten og bilders reiser i tid og rom. I London samarbeidet instituttet med det avantgardistiske arkitektkontoret Tecton, før biblioteket fant sitt nåværende hjem på Woburn Square i Bloomsbury i 1958. Warburg Institute er for tiden gjenstand for omfattende renovering (2021– 2024).

Utstillingen tar for seg seks arkitekturprosjekter iverksatt mellom 1923 og 1958. Hyperdetaljerte arkitekturmodeller i skala 1:75 betoner på forskjellig vis bestemte aspekter ved det portretterte bygget. Modellene fremstår som monokrome skulpturer, farget etter den modernistiske fargepaletten som Warburg-biblioteket brukte i sitt finurlige kodesystem for boksamlingen. Warburg-modellene skal vises i Hamburg, London og New York (2021–23).

Utstillingen er del av forskningsprosjektet Re-inscribing the Warburg Institute ved OCCAS (the Oslo Centre for Critical Architectural Studies), AHO. Kurset Warburg Models er ledet av Tim Anstey og Mari Lending. Modellene er bygget av Pernille Ahlgren, Christian Berg, Amalie Elvegård, Nora Kilstad, Anne Lise Ladegård, Pål Sanchez-Paredes, Silje Seim, Cathrine Sundem, Maximilian Svendsen, Karina Tang og Mara Trübenbach. Samtalepartnere: Bill Sherman, direktør Warburg Institute, London; Uwe Fleckner, direktør Warburg-Haus, Hamburg; Dag Erik Elgin, kunstner, Oslo.

Warburg Models at Blaker

Architecture, interiors and technological systems were crucial for how Aby Warburg and his followers interrogated culture and memory. Between 1923 and 1958 this lead to six architectural projects. In Warburg’s native Hamburg a purpose designed building, the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg, was completed in 1926 to accommodate his remarkable collection of books, and a radical conversion was initiated that created a Planetarium for Hamburg in a disused water tower (1930). When the Warburg Institute transferred to London in 1933, this pattern of commissioning continued through projects designed by the avant-garde architectural group Tecton during the 1930s, and in the construction of the library’s present home at Woburn Square, Bloomsbury (1958). Between 2021 and 2024 this last building is also the subject of an extensive renovation project.

Through six hyper-detailed models at 1:75 scale, the exhibition shows how the Warburg scholars projected a tie between their own occupancy of architectural space and their shared ideas about intellectual order. The models work as monochrome sculptures, coded with the Modernist palette of colours used by the Warburg Institute to organise its collection of books. Each model emphasizes both the interior and the exterior qualities of the building portrayed. The Warburg models will be shown in Hamburg, London, and New York (2021–23).

The exhibition is part of the research project Re-inscribing the Warburg Institute at OCCAS (the Oslo Centre for Critical Architectural Studies), AHO. The graduate seminar Warburg Models is conducted by professors Tim Anstey and Mari Lending. The models are built by Pernille Ahlgren, Christian Berg, Amalie Elvegård, Nora Kilstad, Anne Lise Ladegård, Pål Sanchez-Paredes, Silje Seim, Cathrine Sundem, Maximilian Svendsen, Karina Tang, and Mara Trübenbach. Discussion partners: Bill Sherman, director Warburg Institute, London; Uwe Fleckner, director Warburg-Haus, Hamburg; Dag Erik Elgin, artist, Oslo.