The tension is right there in the name of the Museum of Utopia and Daily Life. It sits inside a 1953 kindergarten building in Eisenhüttenstadt, Germany, a city that was born from utopian socialist ideals. After World War II left Germany in ruins, the newly formed German Democratic Republic (GDR) saw an opportunity to build an ideal socialist society from scratch. This city – originally called Stalinstadt or Stalin’s city – was part of this project, rising out of the forest near a giant steel plant.
The museum's home in a former kindergarten feels fitting – the building's original Socialist Realist stained glass windows by Walter Womacka still depict children learning and playing with an almost religious dignity. But museum director Andrea Wieloch isn't as interested in the utopian promises as she is in the "blood and flesh kind of reality" of life in the GDR. The museum's collection of 170,000 objects, many donated by local residents who wanted to preserve their history, tells the story of the GDR through the lens of how people actually lived during the country's 40-year existence.
The approach of the Museum of Utopia and Daily Life is to treat the history of the GDR as contested, full of stories and memories that resist simple narratives. In this episode, Wieloch describes how her approach sets the museum apart from other GDR museums in Germany including ones that cater to more western audiences. Image: Socialist Realist stained glass windows by Walter Womacka welcome visitors in this former kindergarten.
Topics and Notes
00:00 Intro
00:15 Post-War Germany and the GDR's Vision
00:59 The Planned City of Eisenhüttenstadt
3:00 Andrea Wieloch
03:15 The Museum of Utopia and Daily Life (https://www.utopieundalltag.de/en)
03:56 Daily Life in the GDR
07:35 GDR History in modern Germany
14:43 Future Plans for the Museum
17:44 Outro | Join Club Archipelago 🏖 (http://jointhemuseum.club/)
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Transcript
Below is a transcript of Museum Archipelago episode 108. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, refer to the links above.
View Transcript
Welcome to Museum Archipelago. I'm Ian Elsener. Museum archipelago guides you through the rocky landscape of museums. Each episode is rarely longer than 15 minutes. So let's get started.
After World War II, all of Germany was in ruins. Almost nothing was left standing after 12 years of Nazi rule and 6 years of war. Mass migration, hunger, and homelessness defined the immediate post-war period as millions of displaced people sought to rebuild their lives among the rubble.
For the newly formed German Democratic Republic or GDR, the chance to start over – and demonstrate the utopia of the socialist system – took on a great importance. The East German government saw urban planning as a way to both solve the housing
