There are topics where humor seems to be forbidden – and the demolition of the historic sanatorium and nursing home in Erlangen (HuPfla) is one of them. The History of this building is just too terriblethan jest, satire, irony and deeper meaning could have any place there. On the other hand: If the suffering is great and the feeling of helplessness is overwhelming, then the person tends towards sarcasm. Apparently that’s how it is in Erlangen.
These days the demolition of the last remaining HuPfla building wing has begun, which threatens to render speechless all sorts of contemporaries who are concerned with the preservation of monuments and culture of remembrance. But as is always the case: Just at a moment when excavators are causing consternation, a humorous suggestion makes the rounds that refers to another ongoing theme of this beautiful and probably most classic university town in Bavaria – and, one can assume, meant at most maliciously is.
He asks: Why not implement this, well, convincing construction principle on the HuPfla elsewhere? At the historic “sanatorium” the central risalit including two stubs of an elongated historic building is to be preserved for a documentation site, while the rest is leveled to the ground. Advocates of dredging argue that this is a laboriously negotiated compromise: at least something of the building will remain; and not its most inconspicuous part.
This, in turn, now takes up the said suggestion and transfers the building idea to the central university building in the city, Erlangen’s unfortunately rather dilapidated castle. That is since fenced for nine (!) yearsto protect against falling rocks – and even in this case there are said to be contemporaries who consider this permanent state to be a tragedy with grotesque features.
The sardonic joker, who unfortunately does not know his name, now asks with a sketch: why not just leave the pretty central risalit on the castle too? Cleanly dig away the walls to the left and right of it, the junk has had its time. And then you could also create a lot of space for modern research buildings there, like on the HuPfla excavator site. Wouldn’t it be so sad – you could almost smile about it.