{"id":3295,"date":"2019-09-04T10:25:54","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T08:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"\/blog\/?p=3295"},"modified":"2019-09-04T10:36:50","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T08:36:50","slug":"7-questions-for-antje-liebers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/2019\/09\/04\/7-questions-for-antje-liebers\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Questions for Antje Liebers"},"content":{"rendered":"

7 Questions for Antje Liebers<\/strong><\/h1>\n

On Reconstructing the Frankfurt Kitchen from our Arts and Crafts Collection<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Miriam Barnitz | 4. September 2019<\/span><\/p>\n

The Frankfurt Kitchen <\/a>and its architect, Margarete Sch\u00fctte-Lihotzky, who greatly influenced the Neues Bauen (New Building) movement \u2013 particularly in Frankfurt \u2013 loom large in this Bauhaus centenary year<\/a> and the current bauhausweek berlin<\/a>. Her revolutionary, innovative design is also a key feature in our exhibition „Weimar: The Essence and Value of Democracy“<\/a>. After an intensive, complex restoration and partial reconstruction, our Frankfurt Kitchen, a part of the collection since 1992, can now be presented to the public in its entirety, as one of the few remaining originals from the period. Antje Liebers<\/a>, who has been the museum\u2019s in-house wood conservator for 30 years, oversaw the project. She sat down with our trainee Miriam Barnitz to talk about why she won\u2019t forget restoring the Frankfurt Kitchen anytime soon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mrs. Liebers, restoring an entire kitchen sounds like a complicated task. How did you react when you first heard about the proposal?<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Antje Liebers:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been familiar with our Frankfurt Kitchen since the mid-90s, and I knew right away, boy, we\u2019ve got our work cut out there! Because it had never been presented in its entirety, the kitchen was still a collection of individual pieces. Important elements were missing. And it had been restored only partially \u2013 and rather unprofessionally at that. But this kind of project is often a godsend for collection objects, because they are made fit for exhibition for the long term. We inspect them with a fine-tooth comb. Time is never on your side, though, when it comes to preparing and performing conservation treatments. You have to ask yourself, what\u2019s the most economical and fastest way \u2013 that entails the least red tape \u2013 to prepare an object for exhibition and preserve it for the future? If you want something done quickly and economically, it\u2019s best to do it in-house, where we have many respected experts in our team. We had to work together in researching the objects\u2019 history and coming up with solutions, especially when reconstructing the colour palette \u2013 something that kept our collection manager, Dr. Leonore Koschnik, and I very busy!<\/p>\n