Paul Kurek

Inspired by my work with artists, architects, and urban planners, my first book Heavy Load-Bearing Modernity: A Cultural Geology of Albert Speer’s Berlin/Germania embeds a charged piece of material into intellectual history: the heavy load-bearing cylinder. The massive ferroconcrete cylinder is 46 feet tall, has a diameter of 69 feet, and weighs 12,650 tons, which is more than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Statue of Liberty in New York, and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro combined. Underneath it are measurement chambers that go as deep as 60 feet underground. Hitler's architect, Albert Speer, ordered the cylinder to simulate the weight of a gigantic Triumphal Arch projected as the major entrance gate to a completely remodeled Berlin: Germania. This plan capitalized on forced labor, deportation, and large-scale demolition, and was deeply tied into the network of concentration camps. I argue that the heavy load-bearing cylinder, as an engineering blueprint for both fascist imperial fantasies and the modern metropolis, was forged in a crucible of progress, megalomania, and destruction. As such, it is the dialectical emblem of fascist German modernity. This journey navigates the reader through the entangled histories of architecture, geotechnology, and the holocaust, among other layers of history. 

Talk (in English): »Heavy Load-Bearing Modernity: A Cultural Geology of Albert Speer’s Berlin/Germania« at the Society of Fellows, University of Michigan

Talk (in German): »Der Schwerbelastungskörper: Ein Ort der materiellen und symbolischen Schwere« (The Heavy Load-Bearing Cylinder: A Space of Material and Symbolic Weight) at Berliner Unterwelten e.V.

Affiliation(s)

• Faculty Affiliate, Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia