Description: Berlin, the capital of Germany, is also the biggest city of the country (this is not a superfluous remark as Bonn, the old capital, is only a medium-sized town), seen from there, Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Württemberg, is province.
What do we find beyond Stuttgart, say, about 80 km to the north-east in the direction of ´Swabian Siberia´ bordering Bavaria? The town Schwäbisch-Hall, for example, about 35 000 inhabitants. But that´s not the end of our journey, about 20 km farther is the town Künzelsau, still not our destination, we´re looking for a village, Gaisbach (meaning goats´ brook).
If the term ´anus mundi´ comes to your mind, you´re not far off the point. This is Latin and sounds educated, ´arse of the world´ is English and means exactly the same.
Why have I guided you to Künzelsau-Gaisbach of all places? Of course, culture-wise, the province doesn´t offer much (if it did, it wouldn´t be the province), but if it does offer something, you can be sure that it´s noticed. I bet many inhabitants of Künzelsau have seen more world-class artefacts than many Londoners living in Zone 1 who, for too much choice, rather stay at home in front of the box!
How´s that?
Good Man Reinhold Würth must be thanked.
He is the chairman of the Advisory board of a firm which is a world-wide business with 37 000 employees in 80 countries in the field of assembly and connecting technology with a product range of 50 000 products concentrating on screws, screw accessories, chemical-technical products, dowels, insulation etc., etc.
What does a man like him do with all his money? Collect art, for example, and show his collection to his employees and visitors. Three to four changing exhibitions with works of art from the own stock as well as exhibitions providing an overall view of an artist or a specific issue are shown annually. The Museum Würth, integrated in the administration building, reports more than 50,000 visitors from outside every year, and this number is increasing steadily. There are two museums in fact, ´besides works of art, the museum complex also accommodates an unrivalled collection of screws . . . it documents the cultural, historical and technical aspects of this extremely diversified theme.´ (from the home-page)
One of the highlights was the large installation by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in 1955 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the firm. They packed the interior of the office building, the roof has glass panes onto which they glued light brown packing paper with the effect that the hall was bathed in a honey coloured light, the floor, the staircase, tables and chairs were covered in off-white cotton cloth, tied with string of the same colour, a breath-taking effect of the same kind all works by Christo have. During the installation Würth showed drawings and paintings from his private collection.
I was there around noon on a working-day and had a snack in the cafeteria. I asked some employees if they could imagine what it would be like to work again in ´naked´ surroundings. They said they had been sceptical before the installation, but knew already that they would miss it.
In 2001 Würth had an extra museum built, the Kunsthalle, in Schwäbisch Hall, 20 km away, it´s regarded as a kind of ´sister institution´. For the Danish architect Henning Larsen, ´the challenge in Schwäbisch Hall lay in creating a building that dared to be modern and yet was in harmony with the architecture and scale of the medieval town.´ He certainly won the challenge!
The massive reinforced concrete structure is clad in local Muschelkalk (this German term is used in English, too), which has been split using an new technique that produces interesting effects. The individual slabs are not simply hung on the face of the structure but are layered, with the split edges overlapping one another. A striking façade of steel and glass sets off the stonework and provides an effective contrast, and gives an open view of the town. (home-page)
The museum sits very close to the neighbouring houses; when strolling through an exhibition the visitors can look out of the large windows directly into the people´s homes if they haven´t drawn their curtains, they, on the other hand, can look at the artefacts from their living-rooms without getting up from their sofas. Good, you might say, so they save the money for a ticket. But no, they can´t derive any pleasure from that, the admission is free anyway. Herr Würth is a genuine benefactor!
I've been to the Kunsthalle three times already although it takes me two hours (one way) to get there by train and will go there again tomorrow to see the exhibition Mexicanidad. From the homepage, "With about 300 important works by outstanding representatives of twentieth-century Mexican art [Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, Francisco Toledo and Adolfo Riestra] the Kunsthalle Würth sheds light on the phenomenon of "Mexicanidad", that specifically Mexican mentality, difficult to define and continually self-questioning, shaped by the checkered history of this young and hybrid nation." I look forward to it.
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