Summer School 2013 – Experiencing the Dresden Damascus Room
Extern · Forschung · Studium · TU Dresden · 15. Oktober 2013 · Technisches Design ·
Schlagwörter: 2013, Damascus Room, Japanisches Palais, SKD, Summer School
The second day of our workshop week was a very special one. Not only could we see the Dresden Damascus Room we all had been longing to visit, we were even allowed to sit in it, drink a cup of special damascene coffee spiced with cardamom along with some genuine arabic treats, what a feast! But lets start at the beginning. After having had breakfast we went straight to the Japanisches Palais. I believe most of us had never been there before, so it was quite nice being greated by the iceage animals at the entrance.
We entered the dark rooms of the exhibition only to find a great collection of Persian, Ottoman, Central-Asian and damscene carpets glowing with the brightest and richest colors, their shimmering golden details sparkling with every change of perspective. This was a good preparation for what was to follow. To simulate the feeling of the city of Damascus and the eastern world, we went on a tour of senses with Margareta Bijvank. We smelt the spices, the untreated as well as treated wool used for making carpets and cloths, and felt the very fine silk garments. It gave us an impression what a day on the bazaar might feel like. The conservator of the Damascus Room, the lovely Dr. Anke Sharrahs then guided us after our imaginary bazaar journey to the inviting and tranquilizing guest room she considers her treasure after having worked on it for over 15 years. Her passion for this rich culture and the arabic art could hardly be overlooked. I believe I was not the only one opening my eyes in amazement when she told us to put off our shoes and have a seat. Lucky ones we are. Nothing could have given us a greater boost of motivation of somehow enabling the future visitors to feel the room how it is ment to be. This was of course a special exception made for us, but an absolutely essencial one. Dr. Sharrahs explained the purpose of the room as the essence of the hospitality of this culute. It’s a room for the guests, for negotiation, for talk, for feeling warmly welcomed. For sharing drink and food and for staying over night. A multipurpose space that can be easily transformed to fit the needs of the guests as well as the hosts. Together we tried to explore what the exhibition was missing to comunicate all of this to the visitors while being served the delicious coffee mentioned in the beginning. Afterwards, the knowledge collection and creation phase started. A tough task as there still were so many questions to ask after all the input we had already received. We where asked to scribble and visualize as many infomation as possble in the drawing workshop led by Dipl.-Arch. Grit Koalick to make the information as easily accsessible as possible for the later tasks to follow so everyone could use the drawings as a solid knowledge base to work with. What a day! The rest of the work we did on monday I’m going to feature in the next entry as it will make more sense in this context. I therefore close the journal of this very emotional and sensual day with pictures of our experiences.
Image courtesy of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. All rights reserved.