Dan was starting to feel poorly so decided to spend the afternoon in bed. I set out to book reser4vations for the trains for the rescheduled part of our journey to Stuttgart, Rothenberg ob der Tauber and Munich and then catch the tram to the Red Dot Design Museum, recommended to me by the photographer of the ducks of Bonn, and the main reason for me planning a stop here. The trams, like the light rail in Boston, actually run from tracks for the first part of their journey from the main station, and then they go out onto the street. The museum, housed in an old coal mine, was a 20 minute journey out of town. Catching the tram was actually really interesting itself. This was virtually my first foray outside the centre of the city and it was a really interesting look at the suburban housing. The centre of Essen is mostly made up of non-descript square concrete and metal buildings, most of which look like they were built in the 60s or 70s. They were utilitarian and kind of added to the working class feel that permeated the city. The suburban areas also had a utilitarian, workers feel to them but they were more like workers cottages that had probably been built in the early part of the 20th century so the buildings themselves and the fact they had garden and open spaces around them, were more interesting. They were, like most housing you find here, about three stories tall, with very peaked rooves for the snow and attic windows in the third story. There were huge groups of them the same – sort of like housing estates which is what leads me to believe they are workers’ cottages. (I wanna be Adored – Stone Roses. I remember listening to this quite a lot while working overnight at Coles. I could get away with playing my own music overnight as long as it wasn’t offensive – Stoned Roses are certainly not that.)
When I arrived at the museum, it was close to 4pm so it was already starting to get dark. I wandered across to an information booth at the bottom of a huge red lit escalator that I imagined was the entrance to the museum. It was the entrance to a museum, just not the one I was looking for. The whole site is actually a museum and there are collections of all sorts of things, including displays about how the mine itself worked when operational. It would have been interesting to visit everything but my main focus in the two hours I had before closing time was the design museum. And it was well worth it.
The museum is four floors built into the existing building, without losing the sense of what had been there before. There was a special exhibition of Swedish design and the main collection which included the best products from around the world, as awarded by the red Dot Institute that runs the museum. Other than a small corner for poster art and packaging design, it was all products. Exactly the kind of thing that you have trouble finding collections of, especially anywhere in Australia. Australians pay little attention to the design of the products they use every day and there is no culture of supporting intuitive, inventive design. In fact probably less interest in Australian design in 2013 than there was in 1983. Successive Governments have stripped away support for R&D funding, preferring instead to prop up dwindling manufacturing industries where the design and engineering is done offshore or into agricultural subsidies so that we can maintain some cultural stereotype that Australia rides on the sheep’s back. Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe in food security, in sustainable agriculture and, as it happens, in manufacturing. But we should be looking at all of these industries as high end industries with the value add of Australian innovation in science, technology and design. Australians have long been good at finding inventive solutions to the problems of everyday life – we should be harnessing that. It was telling that amongst the hundreds of designs for medical equipment, furniture, appliances, accessories, vacuum cleaners, bicycles, lighting, Kitchen utensils and even sex toys, I found not one Australian designed product. And to add insult to injury, even the kiwis had a few. Now really might be the time to think about moving to New Zealand. (Aunty Pauline – H-Block 101 – One od the best political ditties about someone who never should have been elected to Parliament.)
There were, however, some very exciting and clever designs in the collection as I weaved my way through the many exhibits. You had to really pay attention – the exhibits were attached to the walls between pieces of the machinery of the old factory. The day after my visit, the museum was holding an auction to sell o9ff some of the products in the collection (and make room for next year’s winning designs). The proceeds of the auction were to go to charity but it was probably a good thing I wasn’t there for that. There is still quite a bit of our holiday to go yet. After two hours in the museum, I called it a day and headed back to the hotel to wake Dan for dinner.
Dan wasn’t up to Christmas markets dinner that evening so we tried looking for a restaurant. I am sure there must have been some in Essen but we found little more than cafes. After venturing into a department store – Dan wanted to look at the lego – we decided to try out the restaurant on the top floor. It was set up like those old school bistros you used to find in Coles and woolies. You get a tray and choose what you want and then pay at the counter. The difference here is that beer is one of the things you can choose. The alcohol laws here aren’t very strict – you can buy beer from the kiosks on train platforms but you don’t see a huge amount of public drunkenness or brattish behavior like you see at home. Or perhaps it’s just that we haven’t really been out late enough for that. We both had Weiner Schnitzel which came with pretty good chips and over cooked veges with passable hollandaise. All in all for the seven or eight euros it cost, it was pretty good. There is quite a lot of cheap, hearty food in Germany. It is actually staggeringly cheap in comparison to Scandinavia where nothing was under 10 euros. We are eating reasonably well here for less than at home. (Jane Says – Jane’s Addiction – this reminds me of a particularly memorable time in my life jam-packed with parties and people. A time of living rather than achieving)
Dan was feeling a little better after some dinner so we took a stroll through the Christmas Market where I bought what I thought was a quite unusual necklace (except that it appeared in the next Christmas market we attended). We also found what was fast becoming one of Dan’s favourite stalls, the hot sugar roasted nuts, and went on the Ferris wheel. It was quite a large one. We shared a gondola with two eight year old girls. It is amazing how similar the inflections and behavior are despite the language difference. They were doing exactly what you’d expect eight year old girls to do – giggling, whispering to each other and trying to find their friends on the ground. After our brief Christmas market sojourn it was time for bed.
Christmas themed activities – 10 (because a second visit to the same Christmas Market doesn’t count) War museums and model shops – 1.5 Design experiences – 1
