Building Memory Competition: Women Pioneers of TU Graz

In association with the alumni women’s network (“WomenUniverse”) of TU Graz, a KOEN model-building seminar took place during the summer semester of 2023 with the aim of designing a memorial dedicated to the first women graduates of TU Graz. The seminar provided the students with a suitable backdrop to reflect on the culture of remembrance, activism, and the historical status of women at the university and to address this topic by means of architecture. In the course led by Ena Kukić and Barbara Gruber, the idea of a design competition was also taken up and implemented. Ultimately, a jury of five had the task of selecting the winning project. In total, four prizes were awarded. The first prize went to the project by Manuel Bordos and Phillip Rabl, whose memorial can be individually modified for each graduate. Each plane of the monument is equidistant from the others. The interaction of the layers and their different colors creates a multifaceted, abstract portrait that pays tribute to the complex and manifold achievements of the graduates. The viewer is invited to explore the different layers and trace the path of each graduate. Only by looking at the perspective origin of the abstract portrait can it be recognized and understood in its entirety.

The second prize was jointly won by Martin Kern, Manuel Rammerstorfer, and Lisa Theurl; Clemens Cresnar and Dominic Janisch; and Christoph Bamberger and David Pöll. In the first project, Martin Kern, Manuel Rammerstorfer, and Lisa Theurl designed a monument under the motto of a communal discourse about women in technology or a monument for TU Graz, thus promoting this discourse on a low-threshold and informal level. The design by Clemens Cresnar and Dominic Janisch, in turn, drew on the remarkable legacy left by women technicians at the university and shows the academic achievements made by women at the University of Technology starting in 1811. Christoph Bamberger and David Pöll’s monument, lastly, symbolizes the success of the first women graduates employing a concrete breakthrough in a wall structure. The cut surface of the passage is made of copper and, at the same time, represents the text carrier for a narrative recounting the achievements of the first women graduates.

Translation: Max B. Spamer