Man knows it only too well from real life: the giver shouldn't actually expect anything in return. But who gives without an ulterior motive, even if it's just to help their ego? If the gift is even a building – a school, a library, a museum – there is inevitably a historical dimension that often lasts for decades, long after the laying of the foundation stone and the groundbreaking are history. The Munich Architecture Museum would like to demonstrate in its current exhibition “The Gift” that there is a threat inherent in the magic of receiving gifts.
The Victorian model settlement Saltaire in West Yorkshire or the Parisian La Cité de Refuge, the Toynbee Hall and the Rosenwald schools are cited as beacons of the philanthropic genre. Even in these projects of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there were ulterior motives: how to breed the optimal worker who would be loyal to the company; Which student should attend my school and which should not? Co-curator Lukasz Stanek locates a “latent possibility of violence” in all charitable donations. Using four case studies, curators who come from the respective countries of the examples discussed examine the interaction between donors and recipients.
Built sixty years ago, today an unsolved problem – the Universal Hall in Skopje, North Macedonia
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Image: Munich Architecture Museum
First there is Skopje in North Macedonia, destroyed by an earthquake in 1963. Reconstruction was achieved in record time with the help of donations in kind and money from ninety countries. A symbol of global solidarity. Coordinated by the United Nations, blankets and blood plasma come first, followed by residential buildings and factories. As a kind of return gift, the city is building the Universal Hall, an event hall for cultural and sporting use under a mighty dome. After the end of Yugoslavia, the building fell into disrepair and ownership changed from the city to the country and back again. A long-running debate brings all options to the table, from demolition to new construction, and every election campaign promises to renovate the hall. Since Skopje will become European Capital of Culture in four years, there is currently hope that something could finally be done to avert an embarrassment.
Buildings of the neoliberal feudalists
The situation is completely different in Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana in West Africa. Here in the Ashanti region, the former British colonial masters left a forced gift by giving the university land that they considered their own, just as the local farmers did and continue to do today. In the vicinity of the university buildings, which can be clearly seen on a large screen with aerial photographs, there is an extensive agricultural area behind a long wall. The unclear legal situation forces continued negotiations around this legal gray area in which farmers and the university struggle to find a fragile balance.
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