Roland Günter

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Roland Günter

Roland Günter (born April 21, 1936 in Herford ) is a German art and cultural historian and a pioneer in saving industrial buildings from demolition. He is the author of numerous publications on industrial culture , the Ruhr area , and on his second homes, Italy and the Netherlands.

Career

After graduating from high school at the humanistic Friedrichs-Gymnasium in Herford, Günter studied art history in Munich and received his doctorate in 1965 on the subject of "Walls, Windows and Light in Late Antique-Early Christian Architecture". He then worked for the Rheinisches Denkmalamt in Bonn (today LVR Office for Monument Preservation in the Rhineland ). In 1969 he wrote one of the first inventory works of a German city about Oberhausen from the point of view of industrial culture . In 1971 he became a professor for art and cultural theory at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences . He completed his habilitation in 1986 at the Faculty of Culture and Art Studies at the University of Hamburg.

He retired in 1999 and now works as a freelance writer. He was on the board of the Deutscher Werkbund North Rhine-Westphalia for 12 years.

The Tuscan city of Anghiari made him an honorary citizen in 2006.

plant

Eisenheim and Ruhr area

Originally, in the early 1970s, he wanted to document the oldest workers' settlement in the Ruhr area with a group of students before it was demolished. Instead, the group directed the protest of the residents against the demolition of the Eisenheim housing estate in Oberhausen into organizational channels, following the example of the citizens' groups . Analogous to this term, they chose the term workers' initiatives . As a result, dozens of such groups emerged in the Ruhr area. They were advised by Roland Günter and other critical intellectuals, who brought in their experience in dealing with the press, politicians and legal issues. In the course of this workers 'initiative movement, a large part of the workers' settlements in the Ruhr area could be preserved. Today many of them are listed and are part of the Route of Industrial Culture . In 1974 Roland Günter moved with his family to the Eisenheim settlement. At the Eisenheim research center, together with Janne Günter , one of the co-founders of oral history in Germany, numerous publications on working-class and industrial culture were created. In 2003, the architect Bernhard Küppers built a "scholarly library" for Janne and Roland Günter on the edge of the historic settlement as a work and conference space.

In the context of worker photography, Günter understood photography as a weapon. He was involved in a rethinking of the valuation of industrial buildings and workers' settlements. As a consultant and as an author, he participated in the international building exhibition Emscher Park . According to Gert Seltmann , Managing Director of the International Building Exhibition Emscher Park, his travel guide to the Ruhr area “In the Valley of the Kings” on the occasion of the IBA was “the best-selling travel book in Germany in 1994.” In 1996, Günter also implemented the “Talking Roads” project. Enamel panels on the houses vividly depict aspects of the history and everyday life of the settlement and its residents.

Italy and the Netherlands

Günter has been visiting Italy again and again since his school days. As an art historian he was fascinated by Renaissance painting , but above all by urban architecture. He advocates the thesis that the spatial design of Renaissance architecture with close reference to people is also important for contemporary urban planning. In the 1970s, spatial analyzes were carried out in Rome ( Spanish Steps ) and Venice . Travel books followed later. a. to Tuscany , Anghiari , Urbino , Ravenna and Rimini . In recent years he has mainly supported the idea of ​​Poetic Places, which Tonino Guerra , the screenwriter of Fellini and Gianni Giannini, realized in an exemplary manner in the valley of the Marecchia river in the Apennines . In scenic or architecturally interesting places, they created poetic places with sculptures or reliefs that tell stories and invite you to linger.

Günter also repeatedly got ideas for designing a human city from the Netherlands. There he learned a lot from Dutch town planning, but above all he studied civil disobedience against a technocratic city destruction. He explains the unruly mentality of many Dutch people from their history, using painting as his source material. He also wrote a travel book about Amsterdam .

selected Writings

  • The monuments of the Rhineland, vol. 14: Dinslaken district , Düsseldorf 1968.
  • Croup and food . In: Martin Warnke (ed.): The artwork between science and worldview . Gütersloh 1970, pp. 128/174.
  • Save Eisenheim. Against the destruction of the oldest workers' settlement in the Ruhr area . Eisenheim project group. Bielefeld. 1. Edition 1972
  • Oberhausen. The Monuments of the Rhineland , Volume 22. Düsseldorf 1975. (Manuscript completed 1969)
  • The Ruhr area in film , 2 volumes, Oberhausen 1978 (with Paul Hofmann and Janne Günter)
  • No future for our past? Monument protection and city destruction . Giessen 1975 (with Heinrich Klotz and Gottfried Kiesow).
  • Handbook for Citizens' Initiatives . West Berlin 1976 (with Rolf Hasse)
  • Rome - Spanish Steps . Hamburg 1978 (with Wessel Reinink and Janne Günter)
  • Culture catalog . Hamburg 1979 (with Rolf Rutzen)
  • Photography as a weapon. On the history and aesthetics of social photography . Reinbek 1982 (1st edition 1977)
  • Tuscany. A travel book . Giessen 1985.
  • From Rimini to Ravenna. A travel book . Giessen 1988 (with Janne and Birgitta Günter)
  • Travel Amsterdam differently. A travel book for everyday life . Reinbek 1990 (first 1982, updated new edition 1990).
  • Amsterdam: The language of the world of images. Medial and aesthetic aspects of a historical culture, especially using the example of the city culture of Amsterdam . Berlin 1991 (habilitation thesis, 1986)
  • Departure in Troisdorf . Published by the cultural office of the city of Troisdorf. Essen 1992, (with Tonino Guerra)
  • with Günter Mowe (photographer) and Roland Göhre (illustrator): In the Valley of the Kings. A travel book on the Emscher, Rhine and Ruhr (on behalf of IBA Emscher Park ). Klartext, Essen 1994, 4th edition, continued and expanded after the IBA final, Essen 1999. ISBN 3-88474-044-X ; 5th expanded edition, Grupello, Düsseldorf 2010, ISBN 978-3-89978-123-6 .
  • Cauldron. A travel book on Saxony-Anhalt . Hall 1998 (on behalf of Expo Saxony-Anhalt)
  • Poetic places. In the valley of the Marecchia between the Hochappennin and Rimini . Essen 1998
  • ›Talking Streets‹ in Eisenheim . Essen 1999 (with Janne Günter)
  • Old ways, new ways. Ideas on industrial culture, tourism and creative practical learning at the university . Essen 1999 (with Lienhard Lötscher and Michael Pohl)
  • Visiting our age. Industrial culture in North Rhine-Westphalia . Essen 2001
  • Urban culture and early court culture in the Renaissance. Relationship between politics and aesthetics . Essen 2003
  • with Stephan Alexander Vogelskamp: The sweet life. A new look at the age and opportunities of shrinking cities . Essen 2005,
  • World star Hans Sachs-Haus. Threatened democracy monument - departure instead of demolition . Essen 2006, (with other authors, published by the Deutscher Werkbund NW)
  • Indictment and Vision. The museum> Quadrat <for the Bauhaus master Josef Albers in Bottrop by Bernhard Küppers . Essen 2006.
  • A city in Tuscany. The fabric of history, urban development, architecture and the world of images . Essen 2006.
  • Goti, Longobardi, Franchi, Lanzi, Austriaci, Tedeschi Nelle Memorie Popolari Toskane . Sestino-Arezzo 2006 (ed. With Vittorio Dini)
  • Industrial forest and landscape art in the Ruhr area . Essen 2007 (with Janne Günter and Peter Liedtke)
  • Home + Culture: Twice is more than once. The journey from Oberhausen to the southern Turkish-Mediterranean partner city of Mersin . Food 2007.
  • Learning book city culture. For city dwellers . Food 2008.
  • The dream of the island in the Ruhr area. A concrete utopia for the cultural capital 2010 . Food 2008.
  • The German Werkbund and its members 1907-2007 . Food 2009.
  • Karl Ganser - A man sets standards. A planner biography with the IBA in the Ruhr Metropolis . Food 2010.
  • On the misery of monument preservation and urban planning: communal studies on the philosophy of preservation and destruction . Klartext, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8375-1414-8 .

Web links

Commons : Roland Günter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Günter, Roland
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art and culture historian
DATE OF BIRTH April 21, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Herford