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Map showing Nazi labor camps categorized by type of labor. Image Credit: Antonio LoPiano.
Map showing Nazi labor camps categorized by type of labor. Image Credit: Antonio LoPiano.

Mapping German Construction

Project Lead(s): Paul Jaskot

2017present

Few eras in Art History are as famous for their buildings as Weimar Germany (1918-1933) and none is more notorious than the Nazi period (1933-1945). Yet how are they related in terms of architects and architecture? This project seeks to probe the continuities and ruptures of cultural production between the two periods by looking at the German construction industry. This history from below (as it were) involves Art History in questions of labor, resource allocation, and the larger political economy of the state, among other issues. As such, the aim of the project is to gather and visualize large datasets of building campaigns throughout Germany to reveal patterns of construction that may raise other art historical problems. Special attention will be given to visualizing construction during World War II, such as in occupied Krakow, where construction, forced labor, and occupation policy came together. Overall, the project argues that making the invisible presence of construction visible in Art History through digital means helps us to expand and critique the canon of what has generally been considered “modern architecture.” At the same time, it will make the relationship of architecture and politics in modern society clearer.

Current Collaborators

Jannis Stoter
Bryan Rusch
Antonio LoPiano
Tatjana Zimbelius-Klem

Past Collaborators

Alan Carrillo
Davide Contiero
Christine Liu

Scholarship

Articles

  • Jaskot, Paul B. and Anne Kelly Knowles. “Architecture and Maps, Databases and Archives: An Approach to Institutional History and the Built Environment in Nazi Germany.” The Iris. February 15, 2017.
  • Jaskot, Paul B. and Ivo van der Graaff. “Historical Journals as Digital Sources: Mapping Architecture in Germany, 1914-24.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 76, no. 4 (December 2017): 483-505. doi:/10.1525/jsah.2017.76.4.483.

Presentations

  • Jaskot, Paul B. “Scale and Ambiguity in the Digital Analysis of the Spaces of the Holocaust (or Why Bother Making an Art Historian a Member of Your Team).” Paper presented at the Research Computing Symposium, Duke University, Durham, NC, January 22, 2018.
  • Jaskot, Paul B. “A Plan, a Testimony, and a Digital Map: Analyzing the Architecture of the Holocaust.” Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Toronto, Canada, March 12, 2018.
  • Jaskot, Paul B. “The Scale of Architecture During the Holocaust: Digital Methods for Analyzing Building and Planning Goals in the German Occupation of the East (1939-1945).” Keynote for Digital Humanities und das NS-Regime (Conference), University of Bern, Switzerland, December 12, 2019.
  • Jaskot, Paul B. “Using Digital Humanities to Understand the Architecture of the Holocaust.” Paper presented at the Digital Art History Lab Lecture Series, The Frick Collection, New York, NY, October 17, 2017.
  • Jaskot, Paul B. “Visualizing Krakow under Nazi Occupation: Exploring Digital and Analog Methods to Analyze the Built Environment of the Holocaust.” Emory University, Atlanta, March 28, 2019.
  • Jaskot, Paul B., Anne Kelly Knowles, and Justus Hillebrand. “GIS and Corpus Linguistics: Mixed Digital Methods for the Exploration of Forced Labor in Krakow District Ghettos.” Paper presented at Digital Approaches to Genocide Studies, USC Shoah Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, October 23, 2017.
  • Jaskot, Paul B.”Visualizing Krakow under Nazi Occupation.” Society of Fellows in the Humanities, Columbia University, New York City, February 7, 2019.

Funding & Sponsorship

National Endowment for the Humanities, Level III, Digital Humanities Advancement Grant (2018-2022)

Trinity Research Enhancement Awards (2018-2019)