The Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK) looks back on a history spanning more than a century.
The Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK) looks back on a history spanning more than a century. Its building at Rothenbaumchaussee 64 in the Eimsbüttel district opened in 1912, at a time when ethnological museums in Europe often presented the world to their audiences according to colonial patterns of organisation. The museum’s rooms were also part of this perspective: their architecture, technical facilities and exhibitions were intended to help produce a specific conception of ‘us’ and ‘the others’.
These perspectives have changed over the decades. Two world wars, social upheavals and new questions in academia and public discourse have also left their mark on the interior of the building. Temporary alterations, changing exhibitions and new uses have shaped the building layer by layer. This has resulted in a complex interweaving of past and present that remains visible to this day.
This is where the “MARKK in Time” project, carried out in 2023 by photographer Bernd Spyra, comes in. It juxtaposes historical photographs of the museum’s rooms from the 1910s with contemporary images taken from the same perspective, a method known as refotography. The images reveal the ideas that once shaped the building and encourage visitors to notice the changes that the MARKK has initiated since its renaming in 2018 and the ongoing reform process.
The exhibition is entitled “Between Times at the Museum am Rothenbaum”. It invites visitors to connect the different layers of time within the building, for the museum’s future does not emerge in a vacuum: it builds on the traces of the past whilst simultaneously transforming them. In this sense, the pairs of images on display are not merely documents, but also opportunities to reflect on the relationships between past, present and future.
The rephotographs make it clear that the forthcoming renovation of the museum building, due to begin in 2027, is more than just a construction project: it is a visible sign of the museum’s commitment to critically reflecting on history and redesigning the museum as a place of dialogue.