topotheque Graz

The Graz Museum launched a topotheque for Graz in autumn 2019.
The topotheque is a jointly created and edited online archive as well as a regional historical reference tool. The aim is to preserve and make visible scattered local historically relevant material and knowledge that is kept in private hands. Images, sound recordings, videos, objects, written documents as well as additional information on the memorabilia are digitally preserved in the topotheque for collective memory and joint remembering. The originals remain with the owners, who together with the “topothecaries” compile the knowledge as well as the history of the “objects” and stories around them. All holdings and information on these are linked to each other via keywords, dating and location on the current city map and can thus be optimally searched and filtered by users. Together they form a topotheque Graz network with contact persons for interested contributors:

Your personal contribution: Do you have something for the Topotheque Graz?

Thematic areas for topotheque material can be, for example:

• Lost and existing gastronomy and coffee house culture in Graz (e.g. Nordstern, …)
• Nightlife in Graz (e.g. Parkhouse, De Gustibus, Niesenberger, Kulturhauskeller, …)
• Lost and existing businesses / shops in Graz (e.g. Kienreich, Koch, …)
• “Graz celebrates”—public events in the Graz city area (e.g. carnival, advent, …)
• “Upheavals” (e.g. construction sites, demonstrations, citizens’ initiatives, …)
• Typical (temporary) spots in Graz (e.g. Schloßberg, Weikhard Clock, Oskar in Herrengasse, …)
• Sports in Graz (e.g. marathon, ice skating, football, …)
• Childhood memories of Graz (e.g. feeding squirrels in the Stadtpark, Hilmteich, tobogganing on the Augarten Hill, …)
• Graz excursion destinations or “View of Graz from outside or above” (e.g. Plabutsch, Gösting Castle ruin, Schwarzl bathing area, …)
• Extraordinary events (e.g. “Winter of the Century 1986”, “Sturm is Austrian Champion 1998”, “Total Eclipse of the Sun 1999”, …)

We are looking for and looking forward to your personal objects, your knowledge and your stories. Contact us!

Topothecaryies at the Graz Museum

Christina Rajković, MA MA BA BA
+43 664 8309338

Mag. Robert Tendl
+43 664 3433894

topothek@stadt.graz.at

Focus Districts: the topotheque Graz Network
In addition to private lenders who make their personal memorabilia available to the topotheque Graz as digital loans, a growing topotheque Graz network is also being developed. Cooperation in the district with district and neighbourhood centres or offices as well as neighbourhood initiatives start directly where many people can be found who are interested in their immediate environment and its history and who want to work and remember together. Only regional resources can ensure that local history is comprehensive and in-depth. Therefore, the principle of the topotheque is that its administrators and contributors are anchored in the community. Being familiar with the local circumstances, they are able to ask regionally relevant questions, find historical sources and, with their local knowledge, they are able to provide high-quality keywords, enrich the entries with information and locate them.
Together they form a topotheque Graz network with contact persons for interested contributors: Although the focus shifts from one neighbourhood to the next, the cooperation partners remain part of the topotheque Graz project and continue to make a significant contribution as permanent contact points.
The first step was taken by the Geidorf district in cooperation with the Neighbourhood Initiative Margaretenbad. From spring to autumn 2019, together with the neighbourhood initiative and all interested contributors, contributions to the Geidorf focus district were collected, saved and scanned, data were entered and supplemented with information or stories. Now we have switched to the other bank of the Mur and have been focusing on the Annenviertel from January 2020.

Current focus district: ANNENViERTEL (Lend and Gries)

Since January 2020, in cooperation with the association and district project ANNENViERTEL materials and stories about the districts of Lend and Gries have been collected, searched for, sifted, digitised, enriched and made available to the public via the topotheque Graz on a long-term basis and for free.

Would you like to contribute something to the digital Annenviertel at the topotheque Graz?
Then please contact us by phone or email. Send, email or bring us your photos, drawings, postcards, documents, objects, audio and video recordings or anything similar. Share your memorabilia, your information, your stories, your knowledge about the neighbourhood with us and thus with all visitors of the topotheque Graz. Do you have questions concerning your objects? We are happy to help with your research.

Topothecary at the Graz Museum
Antonia Nussmüller
0316 872-7604
antonia.nussmueller@stadt.graz.at

Urban District Association ANNENViERTEL
news@annenviertel.at
http://annenviertel.at/

You only authorise us to create and use digital memorabilia: In the case of originals, we make scans or digital photographs of them and enter the relevant information (place, time, keywords, contexts) into the topotheque Graz. You will keep the originals of all items on loan.

On the following dates, you will have the opportunity to exchange information about the history and development of Graz’s Annenviertel with our team and other interested parties in the Erzählcafé (story-telling café) on the basis of your and our memorabilia, to remember together, to help shape the digital Annenviertel in the topotheque Graz or simply to learn something about the topotheque principle and the topotheque Graz project:

Thu, 19 March, 5 to 7 pm at Café Vergissmeinnicht, Griesgasse 26, 8020 Graz
Thu, 23 April, 5 to 7 pm at Café Vergissmeinnicht, Griesgasse 26, 8020 Graz
Mon, 4 May, 5 to 7 pm, somewhere at Lendwirbel see www.lendwirbel.at
Mon, 8 June, 5 to 7 pm at Café Centraal, Mariahilferstraße 10, 8020 Graz

We look forward to your contribution and your stories and memories of it!
 

The centre and starting point of the Annenviertel is the Annenstraße as the border between the districts of Lend and Gries. The fictional label Annenviertel was originally coined by < rotor > center for contemporary art in Graz. It was created in 2009 for the art project “The Art of Urban Intervention”, which is still ongoing today—the focus is on artistic action within urban transformation areas.
For the redesign of Annenstrasse (2011-2013), the City of Graz initiated an accompanying programme for marketing purposes, for which the term Annenviertel was permitted to be used. Numerous projects were implemented, such as the Annenviertel flea market or informal get-togethers on various topics. In 2014, the Association Urban District Project ANNENViERTEL was founded and has been strongly active and anchored in the districts of Lend and Gries ever since.
The project Annenpost. Geschichten aus dem Annenviertel, which started out as a literary project initiated by Stefan Schmitzer and edited by students of FH Joanneum – University of Applied Sciences has also been in place since 2009 and has evolved into an active web blog devoted to the Graz Annenviertel.
As a result, Annenviertel has long since established itself as the place name for the area around Annenstraße within the last decade and has become firmly inscribed in the city and its history.
CONTACT:
Topothecary at the Graz Museum
Antonia Nussmüller
0316 872-7604
antonia.nussmueller@stadt.graz.at
Urban District Project Association ANNENViERTEL
news@annenviertel.at
http://annenviertel.at/
A cooperation of topotheque ICARUS, Urban District Association Annenviertel and GrazMuseum.
Project management: Maria Reiner, Alia Bandhauer and Antonia Nussmüller
Topothecary: Antonia Nussmüller
Academic advice: Katharina Mraček-Gabalier
Project coordination: Sibylle Dienesch
Contact person topotheque: Alexander Schatek