As of: February 29, 2024, 10:47 a.m
By: Katja Kraft
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Feels at home in Munich: No wonder, a wooden structure in the exhibition “The Gift” in the Munich Architecture Museum imitates the size of the Mongolian Temuulen Enkhbat's apartment.
Photos of her family tell of everyday life in the Mongolian Ger districts.
© kjk
In the exhibition “The Gift”, the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Munich questions the benefits of gifted buildings all over the world.
Our tip.
For Temuulen Enkhbat, this is not politics.
For Temuulen Enkhbat, it is her home.
The young Mongolian woman is one of the many residents of the so-called Ger districts in Ulaanbaatar.
These housing estates were once a gift to Mongolia from the Soviets.
Very simple plots by western standards.
For Enkhbat and her relatives: great luck.
She stands radiantly in a wooden structure in the new exhibition “The Gift” in the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Munich.
The area is exactly the same size as her family's living room in Mongolia.
Photos of their parents, siblings, aunts and uncles hang on display boards.
They sit together at the dining table.
“It's not huge, but it's our home.
My mother always says: No matter what happens in the world, if you have a roof over your head where you can always find refuge, everything is fine.”
Enkhbat came to Munich with her colleague Uurtsaikh Sangi to present their research project from GerHub, a non-profit company that addresses the most pressing problems in the Ger districts.
Because it was once intended as a gift: What will actually become of buildings like these when the time of the donor, in this case that of the Soviet Union, is over?
Because people in Mongolian settlements burn raw coal in simple iron stoves for cooking and heating, air pollution is very high, especially in winter.
“The Gift” questions what ulterior motives donors of architectural buildings have
There are exciting questions that the curators Damjan Kokalevski and Lukasz Stanek raise in the show.
The title “The Gift” means “gift” – but how much poison is there in such gifts?
Architectural donations are common: wealthy philanthropists finance libraries, humanitarian organizations donate emergency accommodation, and agricultural businesses are supported with development aid money.
“Many of these buildings are really useful and are accepted by the communities,” emphasizes museum director Andres Lepik.
But the danger of the power imbalance between the giver and the recipient is immanent;
the coupling of economic gain or political influence to a seemingly selfless gift.
Using examples from four continents, the exhibition tells the story of the charitable and violent dynamics of giving.
A look at the exhibition “The Gift” in the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Munich: There is a lot to read here about supposedly selfless donations.
And that is very worthwhile.
© kjk
And here we once again see the blessed fact that the Architecture Museum is affiliated with the Technical University.
The cases from Ghana, North Macedonia, the USA and Mongolia are based on case studies that local researchers have developed on site.
In constant exchange with the students from Munich, a show was created that makes you question the fact that development support is not always beneficial.
This exhibition, which is influenced by science, is naturally very text-heavy.
All texts, mostly in English, can be found on handouts in German and in easy language.
It's worth reading everything carefully.
Finally, there are examples from Germany.
They make you smile sometimes.
Like the little garden at the Berlin Wall.
At one point it deviated from the actual border and left a 350 square meter piece of GDR land on the western side - inaccessible to East Germany.
The West German government let the property fall into disrepair.
So in 1982, pensioner Osman Kalin decided to turn the neglected land into a garden.
The GDR border troops granted him partial usage rights.
When the West Berlin police demanded his eviction, Kalin declared that the land was a gift and received full usage rights from the NVA.
“Uncle Osman” became an institution in Kreuzberg, supplying the students with home-grown produce and letting them learn in his garden.
In 2004 the land was transferred to the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district and Kalin received lifelong usage rights.
He died in 2018 at the age of 92.
His garden is now a tourist attraction.
Stories that life gives us.
Until September 8, 2024 in the Architecture Museum in the Pinakothek der Moderne;
daily (except Monday) 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday until 8 p.m.