TREASURES FROM THE ARCHIVE .11

November 9, 2019 –  January 12, 2020, house-in-house, 2nd floor

Conrad Roland, born in Munich in 1934, was a pioneer in lightweight construction. During the 1960s he created a wealth of sketches and model studies for suspended buildings and three-dimensional nets, in which light cable structures of steel were meant to absorb the main loads. With a donation by Society of the Friends of the DAM, a 120-story spiral skyscraper with a planned height of 440 meters could be acquired. The model shows one of the most original contributions to the suspended building principle. The model lay resting on foam flakes for twenty-four years, in a box stored at a Berlin shipping agency. In 1987 the architect Conrad Roland left Germany and has since lived in Hawaii. Before leaving, he sold his firm, that, since 1972, had produced three-dimensional climbing nets for playgrounds and large structures for horticultural shows and recreation parks.

We are grateful to the Society of Friends of DAM for the purchase of the Spiral Highrise by Conrad Roland.