99.9% Shock from the Empty Room

On »Open Heritage Day«, the ZKM will be showing a chronicle of the rescue of one of the largest industrial monuments in Europe – the IWKA Hall where it has been housed since 1997. Following the screening, there will be a discussion about former and current cases of monument conservation and the cityscape in Karlsruhe.

The IWKA Hall in Karlsruhe’s Südweststadt district is one of the largest listed commercial buildings in Europe. For a long time, it was doubtful that it would offer space for culture, for the ZKM, the Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe, etc., as it does today. Power and grandeur are very closely linked in the chequered history of the preservation of this monument. There were stubborn political, architectural and conservation struggles concerning this cultural monument. As a project with many discarded demolition and conservation plans, Karlsruhe-based filmmaker Wolfgang Kropp critically accompanied this journey from run-down industrial building to cultural site.

Karlsruhe-based filmmaker Wolfgang Kropp produced a vivid documentary film, which contrasts the situation from the pre-ZKM era and today with the help of historic film material: »99,9% Betroffenheit aus leerem Raum«.
In a number of current interviews with Georg Schalla, Uwe Lindau, Ralf Urban Bühler and Reinhard Wonner, who were the artists involved in the »99.9%« project back then, and fascinating sequences of various campaigns which took place between 1980 and 1994 inw Hall A, today’s ZKM building, the film manages to highlight the artistic diversity and cultural-political approach of the protagonists back then and set it against a historic backdrop.