"Mannheim is growing. Pictures of an Industrial City" opens at Kunsthalle Mannheim

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"Mannheim is growing. Pictures of an Industrial City" opens at Kunsthalle Mannheim
Karl Weber, Craftsmanship in the Machine Age, 1928, poster, photo: MARCHIVUM.



MANNHEIM.- The Graphic Collection, with numerous loans from the Marchivum (Mannheim City Archive), presents the exhibition „Mannheim is growing. Pictures of an Industrial City“. Around 1900, Mannheim rapidly developed into a modern metropolis with a quickly growing population and a booming economy. In drawings and print graphics from the 1920s and 1930s the port, transport, and industry take center stage as the motors of a thriving city. The self-conception of Mannheim’s citizens was especially reflected in the new medium of the poster with its dynamic industrial and metropolitan aesthetic, as exemplified by the transport association which proudly featured loading cranes and factories in its advertising.

The widespread availability of electricity also led to a radical change in the cityscape. The “Elektrische” (electric tram) now drove where horse-drawn carriages once trotted; streets were lit at night and prominent buildings such as the Wasserturm were brightly illuminated. Posters and luminous advertising conquered the public space. In the 1920s a product-oriented objectivity with clear typography and the photomontage as a modern stylistic device shaped the appearance of these posters. Mannheim not only presented itself as an economic power and city of inventors, but as a center of avant-garde art.

Even prior to 1913 Mannheim possessed one of Europe’s most important inland ports. And after the Rhine south of Mannheim had been made navigable at the beginning of the 20th century, the City of Squares remained the central reloading site for goods destined for further south. The Eduard Kauffmann Söhne GmbH, which traded in flour and pulses, played a central role in the port and commercial city.

The so-called “Kauffmannmühle” (Kauffmann Mill), was the first mill to operate steam-driven machines. Here, both regional grain and wheat from overseas were ground and traded. For a long time the Kauffmannmühle was one of the most popular urban motifs within the arts.

The conveniently situated city proved attractive to numerous industrial companies, amongst others the Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik, which later moved to Ludwigshafen as BASF, the tractor producer Heinrich Lanz AG, or the Rheinische Automobil und Motorenfabrik Benz & Cie. Although the industrial landscape and the railway were important pictorial themes of the time, Mannheim’s artists devoted the most attention to the port with its waterways, ships, bridges, and loading cranes.










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