From Windhuk to Tsingtau and Samoa. German-colonial architecture: from a global construction project around 1900 to a transcultural heritage today?

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr.-Ing. Michael Falser
• Subject Area: Art History ; Architecture, Building and Construction History, Construction Research, Sustainable Building Technology
• Term: from 2019 to 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 438099012

• Final Report Year: 2025

Final Report Abstract

From 1884, the German Empire rose to become the fourth largest colonial power. German colonialism was characterised by the fact that, with colonies in Africa (German East and Southwest Africa, Cameroon, Togo), East Asia/China (Tsingtau-Kiautschou) and Oceania (especially German New Guinea, Samoa), it was geopolitically a global project and, despite a short period of influence of only approx. 30 years (1884-1914), unleashed an enormous architectural production, the architectural legacies of which are often still visible today. The starting point of the project was the finding that until then there had been no architecturalhistorical studies that had recorded German-colonial architecture, firstly from a historical perspective in its structural global totality, and secondly from today's perspective across three continents and with links back to Germany as an architectural heritage. The research design of the project responded to precisely these two desiderata. One of the biggest challenges of the project was that its start date coincided with the outbreak of the Covid pandemic. Due to the worldwide travel restrictions and national lockdowns (2020-2022), the focus was first on basic research on primary publications from the colonial period, a conference in the hybrid ZOOM format and basic conceptual publications. The post-Covid period (2023-24) once again enabled specialist public formats and travelling activities. To this end, the exhibition "Deutsch-koloniale Baukulturen. Eine globale Architekturgeschichte in 100 Primärquellen" was curated at the Central Institute for Art History in Munich (20.4.-30.6.2023) and its catalogue publication presented for the first time colonialera print media with an explicit reference to architecture. The highlight of the international networking with experts in architectural history and heritage and with protagonists of civil society across the four continents was the conference "Monuments and Sites de-colonial! Methods and Strategies of Dealing with the Architectural Heritage of the German Colonial Era" (TU Munich 3-4 November 2023 with ICOMOS Germany), the proceedings of which were published as an English print and open-access publication. Finally, between 2023 and 2024, five field research campaigns were undertaken in the former German colonial territories and a collaborative network with local experts established: German East Africa/Tanzania (1-2.2023); Tsingtau (Qingdao)/China (5-6.2023); Cameroon and Togo (11-12.2023), German Southwest Africa/Namibia (2-3.2024), Papua New Guinea, Palau, Micronesia, Nauru and Samoa (6-8.2024). With around 30,000 images, this has resulted in Germany's largest image inventory of still standing traces of the former German-colonial architecture: the two-volume print and open-access e-book publication "Deutsche Kolonialarchitektur – Eine visuelle Spurensuche auf drei Kontinenten", is, together with an inter-connected image database at the University of Heidelberg, already funded and a work in progress.

Publications

• German Colonial Architecture from a Global Perspective, in: Review #3, TUM Department of Architecture, München, pp. 48–51. (online)
  Michael Falser
  
• »Learning from Las Vegas« Tianjin!. architectura, 50(1-2), 118-137.
  Falser, Michael
  
• Editorial (mit Christine TAUBER) & Kolonialarchitektur – Transkultur(en) – Erbe. Von Windhuk bis Tsingtau und Samoa: Deutsch-koloniale Architektur aus globaler Perspektive, in: FALSER, TAUBER, 339–341, 390–399.
  Michael Falser
  
• Globale Räume des deutschen Kolonialismus. Begriffe und Methoden – Case-Studies – disziplinäre Querverbindungen. Themenheft in: Kunstchronik, Juli 2021
  Michael FALSER & Christiane TAUBER (Hg.)
  
• Habsburgs going global. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
  Falser, Michael
  
• La concession austro-hongroise de Tianjin (1901-1917) : une histoire inconnue. Tianjin, transferts mondiaux et appropriations locales, 233-254. Éditions de la Sorbonne.
  Falser, Michael
  
• Michael Falser (Hg.): Deutsch-koloniale Baukulturen. Eine globale Architekturgeschichte in 100 visuellen Primärquellen (Veröffentlichungen des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte in München, 71).. Das Historisch-Politische Buch (HPB), 71(1-2), 203-204.
  van der Heyden, Ulrich
  
• Monuments and Sites De-colonial! Approaches to the Built Heritage of the German Colonial Era. Internationale Tagung von ICOMOS Deutschland und der Technischen Universität München (TU München, Vorhoelzer Forum, 3.-4. November 2023). Berlin: Bäßler, 2024. ISBN 978-3-910447-49-3 open access E-Book
  Michael Falser
  
• Editorial – Monuments and Sites De-colonial! Subject, Conference and Proceedings; Introduction – From Global Architectural History to Shared Cultural Heritage; German Colonial Architecture as a Challenge; From Difficult History to Almost Lost Heritage: Surveying Kaiser-Wilhelmsland and Bismarck-Archipel (Deutsch-Neuguinea). In: Falser et al., 11-14, 15-50, 85-93.
  Michael Falser
  
• Michael Falser (ed.), Picturesque Modernities: Architectural Studies in Global Regionalism (1890-1950). ABE Journal, 23.
  Costa Agarez, Ricardo
  
• Architecture in Oceania (1840-1970). Leuven University Press.
  Falser, Michael
  
• German Colonial Building Cultures in Kaiser-Wilhelmsland and the Bismarck-Archipel:. Architecture in Oceania (1840-1970), 195-226. Universitaire Pers Leuven.
  Falser, Michael