The Books of Groningen
For centuries, town boundaries were marked by walls and fortifications interspersed with highly decorated gates. The gates gave the outside world access to the towns and opened them up to the surrounding countryside. Many of the old walls and gates were pulled down in the 19th century, when towns lost their traditional shape. Groningen received its town charter in 1040. As part of the celebrations to mark its 950th anniversary, it was decided to erect a series of markers indicating the boundaries of the city and spelling its ancient name Cruoninga.
The project has been designed by Daniel Libeskind and has been made possible by contributions from the municipality of Groningen, Royal PTT Nederland nv and the Ministry of Welfare, Health and Cultural Affairs.
The work was sponsored by Wilma Bouw bv.
Libeskind's general map of his masterplan The Books of Groningen
Citymap of Groningen with the locations of each marker
With his masterplan called "The Books of Groningen" tried the Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind to give back the dutch city Groningen some of it's earlier identity, going back as far as the year 1040 when this city was first mentioned in historic writings as the settlement Cruoninga. His masterplan consisted of seven variables plus one location for each of the nine or ten designers. The seven variables were a muse, a corner, a technique, a (point of) time, a period of time, a colour and an inner space (a typical spot somewhere in the city).
Nine locations are situated at nine approaches to the city, the tenth in the centre. To leave more room to the artists inspiration Libeskind included an escape clause for the seven variables.
With each marker goes a caption written on a pillar, like the one on the left at the location of Gunnar Daan's marker, part of these captions are here at this page.
Map Book A
Architektron urania
Leonhard Lapin: Esthonian, studied architecture at the Esthonia Art-Institution and had as artist exhibitions all over the world.
Shelter / Astronomy / Navigation / Ivory / After Midnight / Urania
Discipline: Visual arts
The observatory designed by Leonhard Lapin with Enn Laansoo looks like an ivory tower from the outside. The staircase ends in a mirror: the gate at the border between reality and irreality. Climbing to the top, we rise above the earth from where we can read the book of the universe.
Map Book G
The tower of carts / The tower of letters / The joker's perch
John Hejduk: American architect, dean at the Irwin S. Schinin School of Architecture, prominent representative of nowadays architecture.
10 pm / Dark Blue / Medicine / Heroic / poetry / Hospital / Calliope
Discipline: Architecture
John Hejduk's design is a triptych about the passage of time. It consists of a tower of playing cards with cards in one colour on each of its four sides, a tower of letters which spell the name Groningen and a long pole supporting the wheel of fortune on which a joker is resting. There are 52 cards, the same number as the weeks in the year. The number of spots on the cards (364) plus the joker make 365, the number of days in the year. A game of good and bad fortune in the past, the present and the future.
Map Book I
Bruchstück für Luigi Nono
Heiner Müller: dramatist at the Berlin Volksbühne.
Concert / 7 pm / Fugue / Music / Sky Blue / Euterpe
Discipline: Theatre
Heiner Müller's contribution is a tribute to Luigi Nono, the Italian musician who died in 1990. Light, sound text and maps on concrete blocks tell of the suffering which people inflict on one another, both casually and in an organized way. This phenomenon is as old as mankind itself. Music provides the counterweight, a binding element which breaks through the confines of earthly reality.
Map Book O
Thom Puckey's marker
Thom Puckey: English sculptor, teacher in sculpture at the Rijksacademie Amsterdam.
Gold / Rhetoric / Library / Dialectic / 12 pm / Polyhymnia
Discipline: Visual Arts
Thom Puckey has designed a red brick Chimney which rises seventeen meters from the ground. Bricklaying is an ancient craft which is rapidly declining in the modern world. The fantastically shaped branches which break through the brickwork are part of a gold-coloured tree concealed inside the chimney. Each branch is a song. Together the branches represent the muse Polyhymnia. An urban, artificial tree.
Map Book R
Akira Asada & Shiro Takatani's marker
Akira Asada: Japanese economist, professor at the Kyoto Institute for Economic Research in Kyoto, Japan.
Thalia (Festival) / Yellow House / Economics / 8 am
Discipline: Economics
Akira Asada is an economist who has designed a book with Shiro Takatani consisting of two vertical pages made from several different materials. A third broken page lies like a bridge over the water, providing access to the work. Video monitors built into the vertical pages can be used for messages, news from all over the world and short emblematic texts. Signals from space received by the Astronomy Department of Groningen University can also be shown on the screens.
Map Book C
Gate tower clio
Kurt W. Forster: a Swiss-American, since 1984 director of the Getty Center for the History of Art in the American Santa Monica. Former teacher in Art and Architecture at the Yale- and Stanford Universities and the Massachusetts Institute for technology.
History / Narration / 10 am / Light Red / School / Clio
Discipline: History of Art and Architecture
Kurt W. Forster's design is based on two elements which determine the landscape, water and earth, and two forms of energy, gas and electricity. The natural gas in Groningen was created millions of years ago by a process of chemical change in the layers of the earth's crust. History itself can be regarded as a similar kind of metamorphoses. Forster uses an electric mast as the basis of his design, crowned with seven burning gas flames. Every morning and evening, digital figures on the mast light up for one minute at twenty to eleven (10:40), the time which corresponds to the year in which Groningen received its town charter.
Map Book N
Gunnar Daan's marker
Gunnar Daan: a dutch professor, teacher in constructive design at the TU in Delft, The Netherlands.
Lyric / Tavern / 5 pm / Politics / White / Terpsichore
Discipline: Architecture
Gunnar Daan's design consists of two huge nets held at an angle of 120 degrees by a steel frame. Hundreds of light grey and dark grey metal sheets hang in the nets forming geometric patterns. You can also make out the stylised representation of public places: on the left is a modern street pared down its essentials, on the right classical pillars forming a gallery used by the ancient Greeks for political debates. The nets waft slowly backwards and forwards in the breeze. from a distance they form the letter N. They also create an enclosed meeting place.
Map Book N
William Forsythe's marker
William Forsythe: an American, choreographer, dancer and theatre man. Since 1984 artistic leader of the Frankfurt Ballet.
Dance / Mechanics / 3 pm / Streets / Red Flame / Erato
Discpline: Dance
After experimenting with several abstract studies, William Forsythe had the idea of a canal which is more then 400 metres long and contains 27 pillars. A metal arm connected to the pillars pulls a row of trees on the bank and bends them out of shape as they grow. Shipbuilders in Groningen used similar techniques to bend planks of wood to the right shape. The sides of the canal are lined with an undulating wall at various heights wich is covered with vegetation. It represents the way in wich mankind has made changes to the natural world for centuries in order to survive.
Map Book U
A walk along the boundary
Daniel Libeskind: Polish-American Architect, studied music, painting and mathematics.
Participant at the 1988 exhibition "Deconstructivist Architecture" at the museum for Modern Art in New_York.
Magic / 11 am / Graveyard / Tragedy / Black with Red Highlights / Melpomene
Discipline: Architecture
The design by Daniel Libeskind reflects the complexity of the modern age. A forest of posts pointing uncertainly in all directions supports a wedge showing the world. The open end of the wedge points upwards, coming from the past and opening to the future. The point of the wedge splits open conventional certainties so they can be reassessed in contemporary terms.