Wolfram Höhne

A Story as a Monument. The Method of Narrative Reconstruction Using the Example of the Raumflug-Planetarium „Sigmund Jähn” in Halle (Saale))

In 1978, the city of Halle opened its new planetarium. At the time, the building was a technical innovation in two ways: The Zeiss Jena company introduced a new generation of star projectors and it surprised visitors with its extraordinary architecture. The building owes its unusual design to a modular construction method in which lightweight reinforced concrete shells are produced as prefabricated elements and assembled to form facades and roofs. Over the years, the planetarium became an important part of the educational biography of many Halle citizens. When flooding damaged the building in 2013, the city administration decided to demolish the building, which had been listed as a historic monument. This decision remains controversial to this day. Because the loss of the architectural monument was planned, the material and spatial characteristics of the building were recorded in accordance with monument protection regulations. However, the past that made the building a controversial legacy remains undocumented.
Based on established heritage conservation practices, this thesis proposes an alternative approach to documenting endangered architectural monuments. Methodological criteria for selecting documents, arranging them into narrative structures and using narrative text forms in historiographical texts are developed and tested using the object biography of the Raumflug Planetarium. While the building’s shell is being demolished in the winter of 2018, the author assembled the fragments of what has been handed down into a historiographical text. Narrating backwards, the building biography reveals different layers of time. Beginning with the afterlife of the building at its former location, the author describes how the architectural heritage of the GDR was dealt with in the post-reunification period and finally takes readers back to the origins of modern and socialist utopias of progress. Contradictory narratives are presented. The scientific and technical fascinations of state socialism are contrasted with the individual life plans of individual biographies, but also with the idea of disposing of old burdens that dominated after reunification.

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Publications

Höhne, W.: Eine Erzählung als Denkmal. Die Methode der narrativen Rekonstruktion am Beispiel des Raumflug-Planetariums „Sigmund Jähn“ in Halle an der Saale, Weimar 2025.

Höhne, W.: Kulturerbe aktualisieren? Überlegungen zur künstlerischen Arbeit mit Denkmälern, in: Dolff-Bonekämper, G./ Herold, S./ Höhne, W./ Meier, H.R./ Roskamm, N.: Identität und Erbe. Konzepte, Konflikte, Konstruktionen, Basel/Berlin 2025.

Höhne, W.: Übersehenes Unrecht? Eine Geschichte der Anthropogenese-Ausstellung im Phyletischen Museum Jena, in: Höhne, W. et al. (Hg): Bodies in, als, von, mit, und ‚Identität und Erbe’, Weimar 2025.

Höhne, W./ Halili, A./ Piela, B./ Prebistero, M.C./ Juutistenaho, O./ Wegewitz, M/ Sellmann, A. (Hg): Bodies in, as, of, with, and ‘Identity and Heritage‘, Weimar 2025.

Höhne, W./ Barrientos, J.C./ Bournonville, N./ Dossin, F./ Groß, N./ Zenker, O (Hg.): With/Out Identity. Zur Frage von Identitätskonstruktionen in Raum, Erbe und Communities, Weimar, 2025.

Höhne, W./ Foerster, L./ Markert, M.: Menschen, Tiere, Irritationen. Erkundungen mit der Filmkamera im Phyletischen Museum, in: Dinccag Kahveci, A./Gegidze, M/ Lopez, P. S./ Vogl, J. (Hg.): Dinge, die verbinden, Weimar 2024.

Höhne, W./ Hajdu, M./ Jesse, D./ Dinccag Kahveci, A./ Karpf, M./ Torres Ruiz, M. (Hg.): Censored? Conflicted Concepts of Cultural Heritage, Weimar 2023.

Höhne, W.: Narrative Rekonstruktionen. Zur Historiografie eines abgebrochenen Bauwerks, in: Bogner, S./ Dolff-Bonekämper, G./ Meier, H.R. (Hg.): Instabile Konstruktionen, Weimar 2022.

Höhne, W./ Stemmler, A.: Durchleuchten: Spurensuche in Unterrichtsfilmen der DDR, in: Forster, B./ Klinger, K./ Markert, M. (Ed.): Sammlungsdidaktik. Die ‚nicht mehr neuen‘ Medien in den Universitätssammlungen, Weimar 2016.

Höhne, W.: Kunstpraxis als Projekt und Projektstudium, in: Taschitzky, T. (Ed.): Vom Labor zum Projekt, Weimar 2011.

Katz Ben Shalom, Y./ Herrmann, J./ Höhne, W./ Paeslack, A. (Ed.): Das Vermögen der Kunst, Köln 2008.

Bußejahn, F./ Herrmann, J./ Höhne, W./ Paeslack, A./ Suchy, S. (Ed.): ÄsthEthik. Was hat Kunst mit Armut zu tun?, Erfurt 2007.

Herrmann, J./ Höhne, W./ Paeslack, A.: Thesen zu Kunst und Öffentlichkeit, in: Schweppenhäuser, G. (Ed.): Philosophische Diskurse, Weimar 2005.

Höhne, W. et al. (Ed.): Katzengold. Ausstellungskatalog in der Reihe „Wie konnte das Einhorn die Sintflut überstehen?” (Teil 5), Weimar 2003.

Herrmann, J./ Höhne, W./ Paeslack, A.: Die blaue Bank, in: Kretschmann, I.: Inspiration Moritzburg: Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert, Moritzburg 2001.

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Films

Human Beings in the Museum, Documentary, 33 min, 2023

Songs Without a Place, Documentary, 55 min, 2021

Elham – meine Musik für Afghanistan, Children’s Film (ZDF-Redaktion: stark!), 15 min, 2014

From the Second Life, Film series on exile biographies of Jewish architects (collaboration with the Centre for Documentary Architecture), 2013-2017