NEWSPAPER PRINTING
http://www.ifra.com
A working printing technology museum in Darmstadt
There are several museums dedicated to printing
techniques in Germany, the cradle of incunables (books
printed from the invention of printing up to and including the
year 1500). The best known and most important of these is
undoubtedly the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, although the
printing techniques department of the Deutsches Museum in
Munich also attracts large numbers of visitors. In addition,
both the Museum für Verkehr und Technik in Berlin and the
Museum für Technik und Arbeit in Mannheim have departments dedicated to printing. The Klingspor Museum in Offenbach am Main has specialised in the preservation of book and
type art, the Deutsches Zeitungsmuseum in Meersburg on
Lake Constance the history of newspapers, and a centre for
printing and book culture is at present being established in
cooperation with the Deutsches Zeitungsmuseum in Wadgassen, near Saarbrücken. But none has the fascinating concept
of the Haus für Industriekultur in Darmstadt, where the aim
is to keep alive the cultural heritage of the art of printing by
actually working with it.
When, more than 10 years ago, the initiators of this
project, primarily Professors Helmut Böhme and Walter
Wilkes of the Technichal University Darmstadt, started
planning the concept for this “house for industrial culture,”
it was clear from the very beginning that it was intended to
be not just a hands-on museum, but also one that would
keep the cultural heritage alive by constant practical use.
Printing technology, that has undergone such enormous
changes in the second half of this century that there was the
risk of its earlier forms being forgotten, was deemed a
suitable subject for the museum.
The basic equipment for the operational printing technology museum was obtained in 1986 with the acquisition
of the entire matrix collection of the D.Stempel typefoundry in Frankfurt. Included here are also the matrices of
the Gebr. Klingspor company in Offenbach am Main that
went into liquidation in 1956 as well as those of the C.E.
Weber type-foundry in Stuttgart. The quality and quantity
of the collection, that is now completely based in Darmstadt, are claimed to be unique; only Enschedé in Haarlem,
the Netherlands, and the Imprimerie Nationale (state
printing plant) in Paris have larger collections of punches
and original matrices from the 16th and 18th centuries.
The matrices alone would be of little practical value
without the machines to cast the lead type. The museum has
more than 40 automatic casting machines of the brands of
Foucher (Paris), Küstermann (Berlin) and D.Stempel
(Frankfurt am Main); machines for small and large type
casting, machines for casting scripts – in other words, the
entire range of equipment required by an efficient typefoundry. This enables it to serve the niche market of book
printers and studios, and thereby contribute to the financing of the museum.
An “art nouveau” building
The museum building is a factory hall dating back to 1902/1905.
It features a straightforward, purpose-oriented design, such as
was typical of the art nouveau movement.
50
In 1991, a suitable building was acquired for the
museum in Kirschenallee 88 in the north-west of Darmstadt. This is a four-storey building, plus ground floor,
basement as well as a low-ceilinged mezzanine for storing
the type, with a total useful floor area of more than 6000
m2. The building was constructed in the years 1902 to 1905
for a furniture manufacturer, for whom famous architects
and art nouveau artists, such as Peter Behrens, Josef Maria
Olbrich and Albin Müller, the last principal of the Bauhaus
German school of architectural design, worked. For this
reason, the building became a witness of the spirit of this
age and of the renewal movement that accompanied the
artists' colony on the Mathildenhöhe.
It may be compared to the Fagus works in Alsfeld
(northern Hesse), where Peter Behrens himself worked as
an architect before joining AEG as the first industrial
designer. The focus of the work of these early industrial
architects was on straightforward, purpose-oriented
design. Thus the building by itself is of historical value and
has been classified as a monument by the State of Hesse.
newspaper techniques
March 1998
http://www.ifra.com
NEWSPAPER PRINTING
Left: The hand composition department contains 150 m type shelves, and with the two proof presses is fully operational. Right: The
long row of Linotype typesetting machines is headed by a Linotype Simplex dating back to the turn of the century (front, right).
On the ground floor of the museum, the visitor encounters a single-width MAN newspaper rotary press dating
back to the mid-1900s, such as can be seen in many
museums, though negotiations are being conducted with
a newspaper printing plant in Prague with a view to
acquiring the last of the so-called “red devils”, a technical masterpiece of the 1930s. Its prototype was supplied
by the then automatic cylinder press manufacturing company Frankenthal, Albert & Cie to the Ullstein publishing
house in Berlin, and not only offered a performance already
then of 60,000 copies/h, but included such progressive
elements as cast-iron sidewalls, a short inking system
with jet feed, for the first time bevel gear drives instead
of the long cylindrical gears and single cam control in
the folder.
Manual and machine composition side-by-side
The view for the visitor expands further in the first floor
of the building, where a hand composition department with
150 m of type shelves was installed. This was also inherited
from D. Stempel, although it has also been greatly enriched
by the many years of collecting activities of the Technical
University Darmstadt: it was always on the spot whenever
high-quality lead type became available due to conversions
to phototypesetting.
Installed on the other side of the floor is a complete row
of Linotype typesetting machines, just as they used to be
installed at newspaper production plants. All are in working order, and it is interesting to observe how former
machine compositors quickly become re-acquainted with
On the left: The automatic casting machines - seen in the foreground, one from Küstermann (Berlin) - installed in the museum are
used to produce lead type for the trade. On the right: All machines and instruments required for type processing and matrix
production are also accommodated in the museum.
newspaper techniques
March 1998
51
NEWSPAPER PRINTING
http://www.ifra.com
On the left: The automatic cylinder press gallery contains genuine treasures, e.g. the Marinoni Universelle dating back to 1860, seen
here in the foreground, and the Koenig & Bauer automatic cylinder press with planetary drive from the year 1871, seen in the
background. On the right: Aloys Senefelder conceived and invented the working principle of so-called lever presses for the
impression of litho stones. Seen on the right of the picture is the blunt wooden doctor blade that produces the impression pressure.
them when they visit the museum. These include a perfectly restored Linotype Simplex dating back to the beginnings
of the development of typesetting machines, began by
Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1886 in the U.S.A. It was not until
1896 that the first typesetting machine was built and used
in Germany: in 1896 there were twelve, 31 in 1898, and
already 2528 in 1908. On display also is the Typograph,
several keyboards as well as four casting machines of the
Monotype, the single-type composing machine.
Automatic cylinder, litho lever and intaglio presses
The adjacent long row of automatic cylinder presses
(printing presses) contains several treasures: for example,
an early Koenig & Bauer automatic cylinder press dating
back to 1871, equipped with planetary drive (planetary
gears) that was used to print a local newspaper in Nuremberg until 1985 and is therefore still fully operational
today. From Nîmes in France came a Marinoni Universelle
dating back to 1860 equipped with a table inking unit, and
from Dresden in Germany a Victoria Chromotypie automatic cylinder press manufactured by Rockstroh & Schneider
dating back to 1908 as the most recent addition to the
automatic cylinder press gallery.
Needless to say, all types of platen presses and their
predecessors, the steel toggle presses as successor to the
wooden Gutenberg presses, are on display in the museum.
Awaiting the visitor who ascends to the third floor,
besides the generously-dimensioned type-foundry, is the
department for litho and intaglio printing. Even before the
round impression cylinder was invented by Friedrich
Koenig in 1814 in place of the platen, Aloys Senefelder, the
inventor of lithography, had to design a so-called lever
52
press with a blunt doctor blade so as not to have to suddenly
apply the printing pressure, as with the platen press, which
would have destroyed the limestone litho stones. A whole
series of such level presses, ranging from wooden to cast
iron versions, is installed in the museum. In addition, there
is a large collection consisting of 600 litho stones in
different formats, still imaged and just waiting for a new
impression.
In the adjacent intaglio department, a local artist demonstrates to visitors the production of dry point engraving and
the impression of copperplates on an intaglio press with felt
covering. As it is generally known, at the beginning of this
century offset printing developed from lithography and,
already in 1861, gravure from intaglio printing, with the
result that all three main printing processes are represented
in the museum.
For now, guided tours only by appointment
To date, more than DM 5.5 million have been invested
in the Haus für Industriekultur Darmstadt that is managed
by patronage and by a board of trustees. However, the
museum administration is now facing a financial crisis. It is
hoped that a business plan involving new partnerships will
fill the house with more life, and at the same time create the
link to the present(modern printing operation with Computer-to-Print and multimedia cross-links).
At present there is also an absence of sufficient numbers
of cashiers and supervisory personnel, which is why it has
not yet been possible to open the museum to the general
public. But guided tours are available by appointment,
which IFRA would be pleased to arrange for groups of
visitors.
– Boris Fuchs
newspaper techniques
March 1998