DOCUMENTATION OF AN OPEN-AIR MUSEUM: ENSEMBLE GERERSDORF
The topic of the elective seminar in the summer semester 2022 is the documentation of historical buildings of the rural area, which were translocated from their original sites in the surroundings of the region of Southern Burgenland and combined on the grounds of the open-air museum Ensemble Gerersdorf.
Thus, the topic of this elective seminar touches on one of the central tasks of our institute in teaching and research: the investigation and documentation of building cultures of different periods and different regions in Europe and in the non-European area.
Building culture creates identities; building culture is an essential aspect of the identity of a particular era and a particular region. Building culture is one of the most important factors of belonging and self-confidence of an individual.
In order to understand the meaning of building culture, a general definition of culture in the Duden dictionary may provide information, which defines culture as the "totality of the characteristic intellectual, artistic, formative achievements created by a certain community in a certain area during a certain epoch".
Culture - like building culture - presupposes the existence of tradition. Tradition, however, is by no means to be understood as a static element, but rather in its dynamic development against the background of constantly changing social and technological factors.
However, drastic changes in society and technology can lead to the disappearance of certain types of buildings whose function has been lost. The material loss of such building types causes a gap in historical understanding that cannot be filled unless some of the structural objects in question are preserved and documented.
Awareness of this problem has led to the worldwide relocation of buildings worthy of protection, whose function no longer exists at their location, and their preservation in open-air museums. Of course, such museum preservation is only a stopgap solution, but it appears to be the only possible way to convey historical continuity to posterity.
After the economic upswing since the 1950s, with the revolution of new technologies and the abrupt change of social conditions that accompanied it, many traditional building types in Central Europe suddenly became functionless; historical buildings were demolished without hesitation, especially in rural regions, and replaced by new buildings. To the responsible public cultural offices, the only way to preserve the architectural heritage seemed to be to collect the remaining remains in museum displays. In Austria, renowned open-air museums were established in Styria, Lower Austria, Tyrol, Salzburg, Carinthia and Burgenland. One of these open-air museums is the Gerersdorf ensemble, founded in 1976, which today comprises 32 objects from the period between the 18th century and the beginning of the 20th century. For the most part, these are original buildings, and in some cases they are faithful reproductions of the original.
The concrete task within the scope of the elective seminar is a detailed documentation of the structural objects. The special features of the individual objects are to be examined and presented in comparison with the corresponding regional building types. The methods required for this are building surveys by surveying and photogrammetry of the objects on site in the open-air museum, studies of spatial and constructive characteristics of the individual buildings by comparison with corresponding still existing building types in the region of Southern Burgenland, literature studies on the function and history of the buildings, as well as the preparation in detailed descriptions, plans and CAD representations.
