The history of the University of Erfurt

Steel Sculpture

On the occasion of the redesign of the entrance area after the construction of dormitory V (today employee building 1), a steel sculpture designed by Heinz Scharr (*1924) was erected in the same period, which had a striking effect on the entrance area of the Pädagogische Hochschule (University of Education).

The overall composition is characterized by clearly contoured persons (which is the nature of technology), but also by strong black and white contrasts. The conception of the figures is clearly reminiscent of Fernand Leger, especially with regard to the representation of the faces. Since his works do indeed contain elements of a socialist-heroic impetus, it is quite conceivable that the Frenchman influenced the creator of the metal sculpture.

Figure group

The group of figures on the gable above the neoclassical portico was designed by Helmut Braun (*1925), who was also involved in the high reliefs on the auditorium extension of the teaching building I.

It depicts a female and a male allegorical figure, unclothed, with their legs crossed in front of their shame, holding a globe with their arms in their middle, on which a dove of peace is depicted. The limestone version was the work of the master stonemason Otto Lehmann from Erfurt.

Oil painting

Also by Lutz Gode from 1990 is an oil painting in front of lecture hall 4, a slightly abstract figurative composition.

Two further landscape-format oil paintings hang in the same corridor: "Landschaft mit Erntearbeitern" (Landscape with Harvesters), a painting in the style of 19th-century Realism by the Erfurt artist Karl Ortelt (1907–1972), and "Industrielandschaft bei Sondershausen" (Industrial Landscape near Sondershausen) by the Erfurt artist Wolfgang Taubert (1909-1990), which is also reminiscent of 19th-century Realist works in terms of its theme and style.

Glass windows

In the staircase of Building II, which was erected in 1958–1962 in a steel skeleton construction, there are two north-facing stained glass windows measuring 6 x 10 m, which extend over several storeys and completely fill the wall. The windows were built in 1963 according to a design by Otto Kayser (1915–1988) and Gottfried Schüler (1923-1999) and were manufactured in Magdeburg using glass cutting and etching techniques.

The windows each fill out the "compartment" of the wall consisting of ten units. Each of the high rectangular "compartments" is divided into nine areas by metal bars. Originally, the building included the subjects of mathematics and physics; the abstract glass windows, on which signatures and formulas of Einstein, Planck and Copernicus can be read, take this theme into account.

Bronze bust of Theodor Neubauer

In front of the administration building there is a bronze bust of Theodor Neubauer on a stele together with an inscription. The Pedagogical Institute was renamed "Pädagogische Hochschule Theodor Neubauer" in 1965, and the bronze bust also dates from this year.

It was created by Walter Arnold (1909–1979), who was a professor at the College of Fine Arts in Dresden at the time.

Mural

In 1969, the cornice of the belt was removed from the north gable of student residence I and instead a large mural was added, created by the Weimar artist Herbert Reiher in sgrafitto technique.

The mural shows young people in front of grey-green, earth-coloured and white geometric surfaces: a man and two women doing sports. The figures are marked by outlines and have no colour of their own, so that the background colours shine through them.

Order and Freedom (2000)

The red tubes, which seem to float in the air, are an eye-catcher in the library. They are the work of the artist Dietrich Förster, who since 1990 has devoted himself mainly to Arts in public spaces with sculptures and installations. He gave his room installation in the Erfurt University Library the title "Order and Freedom".

An open, anonymous artists' competition was held in 1999 for the "Arts in Architecture" in the new library building, in which Dietrich Förster's design took first place out of 53 participants. The room installation was ready for the opening in 2000: 100 aluminium tubes with red powder coating on stainless steel cables, suspended in the central air space of the library. In keeping with the surrounding architecture, the installation is based on a geometric grid. At the same time, it contains a dynamic that the artist describes thus: "In the arrangement of the tubes, the grid undergoes a further development up to its dissolution. The sculpture can be read as a metaphor for progress: Scientific progress becomes possible when it is possible to leave the foundation of lawfully recorded order in order to move in a kind of creative flight of fancy into as yet unknown terrain, without losing the reference to what has gone before."

Telephone Book Erfurt (in colours) (2003)

The colourful design in the staircase of the university library began with the exhibition "The Ironic Turn. Canadian Contemporary Arts" at the "Kunsthalle" Erfurt in summer 2003, which showed works by the artist Garry Neill Kennedy (1935–2021), among others. Kennedy wanted to artistically relate the two twin cities of Erfurt and Shawnee.

He achieved this with the use and pictorial representation of names from the telephone directories of both cities, which bear a colour-based name, e.g. Brown (Brown), White (White) or Black (Black).

As background for the monochrome paintings, colours were used that have historically and to this day great significance for both cities: for Erfurt the woad blue and for Shawnee a certain red. There are 39 paintings for Erfurt, i.e. 39 colour names of a total of about 800 inhabitants in Erfurt. The largest is 164 cm long and represents the colour name Brown (115 name entries). The presentation for Erfurt was given to the University of Erfurt after the exhibition ended. Kennedy rearranged it in the stairwell of the university library (2nd floor).

Quid prodest ... si nihil audes

The "endless" inscription on the glass walls of the library is actually a so-called "passage protection". A creative librarian had the idea of transforming this necessary security element into a thought-provoking banner. They are Latin verses by Notker Balbulus from the 9th century:

Quid prodest temet studiis librorum
tam brevis vitae morulas dicasse
corpus ac fractum macerasse tantum
si nihil audes

Translated, this means: "What good is it that you have devoted the short time of your life to the study of books, and have so weakened your feeble body, if you dare nothing?"