Workshops
Jorge González: Escuela de Oficio
Escuela de Oficio is a symbolic space that reconstructs Henry Klumb’s ideals for the academic development of architecture as an alternative to the training of professional architects. Henry Klumb (1904-1984) was a German born architect that established himself in Puerto Rico as a prominent professional. His work was motivated by ethical principles in consonance with its cultural and climatic context, thus, providing a modernist approach to the Island. For his “Workshop School” at Kunsthalle Osnabrück, which was presented during the exhibition What Kind of a Celebration, Jorge González built on the oral tradition gathered in his previous project Understory. It was based on a piece of historic information that was brought up in a conversation with Mr. Richard Klumb, son of Henry Klumb, about a Theater Curtain created at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship. The Hillside Theater Curtain was burnt in a fire and exists only through images that show it in a glimpse. A reconstruction of this piece was later created after the original. Else Schmidt, wife of Henry Klumb, participated in the production of this enormous curtain. She was a weaver and promoted a learning by doing method. For Kunsthalle Osnabrück, this workshop and a series of conversations brought together the expertise of basket weaver and Spanish sol lace techniques from Puerto Rico presented by Jorge Gonzalez with German stitching and weaving techniques presented by Barbara Jamin. It was a way of gathering collective knowledge and practices, speared by the interest in re-imaging possible articulations that can be thought for the process of reconstructing the curtain by Henry Klumb. Escuela de Oficios is not a physical space but lives out of exchanges and particular manifestations of different scales and times that weave an ongoing creation of a collective learning space.
COMMUNITY_ Kunsthalle Osnabrück
ART FORM_ Workshop School
CONTEXT_ What Kind of a Celebration
