These days the luminaire was completed, which within the memorial refers to the one in Pacific Palisades/Los Angeles that stands there in front of the house that Thomas Mann lived in with his family during his exile in California, today’s Thomas Mann House. The art foundry Anton Gugg made an aluminium casting for it.
Once again, this marked the end of a lengthy process: based on photos I had taken in 2019 and plans by Public Works Los Angeles, a digital model of the light was drawn, by artist Florian Froese-Peek, transferred with a 3D printer into a three-dimensional 1:1 model made of plastic, then cast using the melt-out process.
I had visited Pacific Palisades in autumn 2019 – see the blog post.
For a long time I had researched and tried to get a light from there – which turned out to be difficult. Transporting it to Germany would also have been a lengthy undertaking, as I found out with the example of the luminaire produced in the USA based on the model in New York.
In the end, I followed the advice of Bob Gale, screenwriter and film producer (including „Back to the Future“), who lives in the neighbourhood. He wrote at the time: „My suggestion is that you have the fixture extensively photographed and measured, and then duplicate it in Germany. This would be the most cost effect and simple solution.“ This suggestion certainly does not come by chance from someone who is at home in the film industry, which often works with props and replicas.
And perhaps the concept of replicating a luminaire from the 1920s/30s using modern digital, but also traditional methods, for a monument that is to be erected in the future – presumably in spring 2024 – also fits the motto „Back to the Future“.
Category: Allgemein
Luminaire from Sanary arrived
A few days ago, the municipality of Sanary-sur-Mer in the south of France made a contribution to the memorial for the Mann family with the lamp or candelabra, as historical lamps are often called. In autumn 2020, I visited the former emigration site of the Mann family.
The candelabra came well packed from the Fonderie de Roquevaire, which had restored it, and was received at the Bauhof in Munich, measured – and labelled. As a small side effect, the letters in my name got mixed up and I became a „Cors(ican)“.
Lecture: A Memorial for the Mann Family, Conference „On Site: Memory, Exile, Migration“, 3.9.2021
On 3.9.2021 Albert Coers will give a lecture on the memorial for the Mann family, at the online conference „Vor Ort: Erinnerung, Exil, Migration“, annual conference of the Gesellschaft für Exilforschung in cooperation with the NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, 3.–4.9.2021.
The annual conference 2021 deals with places of exile and migration and their relation to cultures of memory and stimulates exchange between exile research and other research fields dealing with (forced) migration and flight.
More information, program and registration here.
Radio feature: „Schöner Schilderwald [Beautiful sign forest]“, BR
On 21. 3.2021 there was as a broadcast on Bayern 2 in the Kulturjournal the radio feature „Schöner Schilderwald [Beautiful sign forest]. The artist Albert Coers and his Munich monument to the Mann family“ by journalist Astrid Mayerle, based on an extensive interview. Listen to it here.
Decicison on monument
On 10.4.2019, the plenary assembly of the Munich City Council decided to realize the design of Albert Coers. Coers’ concept, which has won an invited art competition of the cultural department, bears the title „Straßen Namen Leuchten“ [Streets names lights].
Previously, on 28 March 2019, the City Council’s Culture Committee had unanimously decided to follow the jury’s proposal and award the contract for a „Memorial to the Mann Family“ at Salvatorplatz to the artist, who lives in Berlin and Munich .