Thus, in the courtyard of an office building belonging to the German parliament, the Bundestag, the artist combined a former dog pound of a nearby building formerly used by GDR border guards with particular rooms from the Bundestag building, bringing the two together in a construction built from moulds for casting concrete. This iron grid-work was originally used for casting the walls of the politicians’ offices. Thus current spaces are confronted with past ones, vanished and invisible spaces made experienceable and readable in the artistic construction.

The map and the layout of the ideal city Zamość have provided the historical and real reference point for Franka Hörnschemeyer’s contribution to Ideal City – Invisible Cities. The street-grid created by the Italian architect Bernardo Morando at the end of the 16th century returns as a walkway made of twelve cruciform door elements, through whose movable flaps it is possible for visitors to force their way. Orientation in between the doors, each taller than a human being, is deliberately made difficult; it is only possible to traverse and gauge the space, which covers a 36 square meter area, from within the passages, using one’s own body. The title, Konditional, relates to grammar (if…, then,…) as well as to formal logic (A as an adequate condition for B). At the same time Hörnschemeyer’s title provides a general commentary on the ideal city Zamość. The original ideal of a fortified city has become conditional. The (city) space has been blocked; its street grid offers resistance to uninhibited movement. It is only with movement however that the possibilities of the space are opened up. In Konditional Franka Hörnschemeyer has constructed a parable, not just for planned cities and ideal plans. She has also revealed the prerequisites for appropriating such a conditioned and determined space; personal initiative is required if we are to force our way through and open the space up for ourselves.

Ronald Berg