2012 Anne Katharina SchulzeAnne Katharina Schulze - Sanatorium im Harz
During the turn of the century people flocked into the sanatoriums, that mixture of Grand Hotel and hospital where they hoped to be cured from diabetes, asthma, tuberculosis, cardiac insufficiency and the hustle of the city life.
The sanatorium was not just a place which promised abatement from different kinds of diseases but also a place that developed into a stomping ground and a playing field for the upper class. The list of prominent patients is sheer endless.
“For me the institution is like a continental quilt as heavy as it is warm. If I would try to crawl out I would immediately be in danger of freezing myself, because eventually the world is not heated.” Kafka, Matliary, 9th March 1921
In some way it looks idiosyncratic how the sanatorium is enthroned above the Königsberg. As a measure of counter magic the enclosure of the room functions like a repetition of the diseases shape while the architecture works as a guardian shield: balconies, solariums and opened windows.
Porosity, permeability for fresh air from the outside, the exterior and the interior are nullified, they seem not to be differentiable from each other anymore. The hours of rest, the promenades, the opened balcony doors, the veranda doors, a minimum of heating and fresh air cures expand the tangible room inside into the open air permeable world outside. All this is supposed to accelerate the expected time of healing.
The sanatorium was not just a place which promised abatement from different kinds of diseases but also a place that developed into a stomping ground and a playing field for the upper class. The list of prominent patients is sheer endless.
“For me the institution is like a continental quilt as heavy as it is warm. If I would try to crawl out I would immediately be in danger of freezing myself, because eventually the world is not heated.” Kafka, Matliary, 9th March 1921
In some way it looks idiosyncratic how the sanatorium is enthroned above the Königsberg. As a measure of counter magic the enclosure of the room functions like a repetition of the diseases shape while the architecture works as a guardian shield: balconies, solariums and opened windows.
Porosity, permeability for fresh air from the outside, the exterior and the interior are nullified, they seem not to be differentiable from each other anymore. The hours of rest, the promenades, the opened balcony doors, the veranda doors, a minimum of heating and fresh air cures expand the tangible room inside into the open air permeable world outside. All this is supposed to accelerate the expected time of healing.
