Historians Route

Park your car in Pforzheim’s Parkhaus Bertha-Benz-Halle, and take a short stroll to the Reuchlin Haus through the city center that has been reconstructed after the second world war, and is considered as one of the most modernist rebuilt urban areas of Germany. You might want to make a short detour and pass by the 1973 Neues Rathaus, a cherished “Betonperle” (concrete gem) by Brutalism enthusiasts. A talented team runs the Café im Schmuckmuseum where you should have lunch inside or in front of Lehmbrucks’ 1961 built cultural center that currently still hosts the jewelry museum and artist union.

After lunch, take out your Ornamenta tickets and visit a unique part of the basement and courtyard of the International Style building, activated by Ornamenta’s exhibitions 'Solartal: On Tanning, Shades, and Spirits' and 'Inhalatorium: On Felt and Fumes'. On the ground floor, you will find the oldest artist union of the Northern Black Forest region, Kunstverein Pforzheim, which organizes an exhibition reacting to Ornamenta’s theme. The Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim also thematically reconfigures its archive presentations during the Ornamenta summer of 2024.

As you walk back to your parking, take into account the amount of space that was given to motorized vehicles in the post war city layout. Try to spot more of the uncanny buildings and restored churches and historic buildings that emerged after the reconstruction of town. Drive towards Mühlacker, you pass by the construction site of Ziegelhöhe being built on a roof tile production plant area, and find a brief parking spot nearby one of the large supermarkets. On the border of the industrial area and green fields you will find “Inverted Paradise”, a public art work made of found fragments that is developed by artist collective Spazio Cura especially on the occasion of Ornamenta 2024, corresponding to the theme ‘Schmutzige Ecke’. 

Continue driving through the Enzkreis area of the Northern Black Forest, enjoy meandering through the typical Baden-Württemberg landscape, to arrive at the city of Maulbronn where you can park in close proximity to the main entrance gate of the historic monastery. After a walk around the square and small streets of Europe's best preserved Medieval monastery complexes, find yourself a dinner table at Restaurant Kloster Katz directly in front of the large monastery. If you are early enough you might even secure one of the apartments above, Klosterhof 21 Apartments, to enjoy a full night of views on a multitude of architectural styles ranging from Romanesque to late Gothic all in one place, as your bedroom window faces the Unesco heritage site. The summer’s here tend to be busy so we can also recommend Hotel-Restaurant Zum Nachtwächter just a five minute drive away in the village Lienzingen, a traditional timber framing building.

Make use of the hotel breakfast, bakery or Klostercafe Maulbronn and head over to the ticket office of the Monastery in case you have not already found online entrance tickets. from nine thirty onwards the Monk’s refectory and Lay refectory as well as the inside courtyard with ornamentalised ceilings and other impressive sacral spaces are open and worth a morning walk. For a slow start of the day, pick up an audio tour and find out more about the history. The monastery was founded in 1147, but you will experience the upgrades and expansions it underwent. The twelfth-century parts of the buildings can still be recognized, the specific style used, called the "Hirsau style", was native to Swabia and is characterized by uniform pillars and rectangular frames around the Romanesque arches. The monastery as a whole survived over time due mostly to the Dukes of Württemberg.

Get back in the car and continue your route towards the Matthäuskirche in Pforzheim-Arlinger. You will find a parking lot near the building, behind the bus stop Höhenstraße. Inside the architectural beacon of post-war circular building,  the church is made of sorted and repurposed rubble, you will encounter Ornamenta’s exhibition “Schmutzige Ecke: on Circularity, Sobriety and Rubble”. For most of human history, utilizing waste was the norm. In the early nineteen hundreds, recycling materials like paper, rags, and bones was important for both businesses and households. During the First and Second World Wars, nations increased recycling efforts to support their war needs. More recently, we have intensified ‘waste’ reclamation, taking socio-cultural values on board when it comes to future programming of historic architecture, contemporary ways of repurposing materials, and acknowledging acts of physical labor in a society that is otherwise focused on screen-based individuals. For Ornamenta’s “Schmutzige Ecke” exhibition, the Eiermann church building is reconfigured as a site where ideas and people meet to talk about taboos and reinventing heritage, with a shared goal to pave the way to an equal society and diversify the canon of our built environment. Architect Egon Eiermann once provocatively stated, 'A church is just as functional a building as a public toilet,' reflecting a progressive pragmatism. In line with this sentiment, the exhibition “Schmutzige Ecke” showcases projects and works by a diverse range of creatives.

In between driving from Pforzheim-Arlinger to Bad Wildbad, make sure to stop over at Schloss Neuenbürg where the Black Forest based fairy tale Das Kalte Herz by the Swabian poet Wilhelm Hauff (1802-1827) is presented in an interactive exhibition. Note there are limited parking capacities uphill but you can find additional ones downhill indicated by signage. Enjoy the view from the castle onto the village of Neuenbürg with its markant Pectin factory, which is also part of Ornamenta’s lust program with an artist talk in July.

For centuries, Germany has embraced the concept of 'Kur' (Spa), a holistic approach to healing that emphasizes spending time in nature, utilizing thermal waters, and fresh air. Small towns settled along the hot springs and mineral water wells, giving birth to the famous spa towns of the Northern Black Forest region. In Ornamenta’s exhibition "Bad Databrunn," a former bathing house is repurposed to show and tell visitors about contemporary ways of dealing with physical and digital stress. The ornamental walls of the wellness building of König-Karls-Bad set the backdrop for taking a time out from non-stop availability. To get there, continue driving from  Neuenbürg to Bad Wildbad and park at the Parkhaus Kurzentrum or Parkhaus Palais Thermal. A short walk from there, bordering the Kurpark you will also find several lunch places for a short or longer break. Restaurant Cafe Bar Melange and Foxy Bräu - Restaurant & Brauerei are recommendable.

To round up your day, move on towards the city of Nagold where you will find Ornamenta’s "Aphrodisiac Garden" in the Zeller-Mörike-Garden, a public and inclusive pleasure garden. It celebrates a variety of sexual practices and provides a space to honour marginalized or lesser-known forms of intimacy. The historical pharmacy garden in the town of Nagold now includes six themed herbal beds. These beds cover topics like sex boosters, love potions, orgasms, and gynaecology. French landscape architect Céline Baumann, in collaboration with the regional non-profit initiative Q-Prints and Service Pforzheim, added these to give new insights into ideas about intimacy, botany and health. The German Naturopathic Association supported the group in compiling a list of the arousing herbs and plants as well as their applications. The garden features a new  'Green Room’, a labyrinthine space formed by hedges, serving as a stage for sensual encounters and playful seduction. Discreet interventions in the greenery, such as variously sized holes, encourage visitors to engage in voyeurism. The "Aphrodisiac Garden" is a place where solitary wanderers can comfort their inner feelings. On the occasion of Ornamenta, it is open to the public to use and host events like weddings and picnics, but also welcomes performances, dinners, and queer movie nights. 

Drive up to heritage hotel Palmenwald Schwarzwaldhof in Freudenstadt or find a nearby place in town for a meal and stayover in a former air spa place. Unlike Pforzheim, the city of Freudenstadt has been restored as much as possible in its traditional form after the second world war. During an evening walk you should make sure to pass by the large central square, where a bronze Venus sculpture from 1954 is installed. It was created in memory of the destruction and reconstruction of Freudenstadt. It is also called the "Mortgage Venus" because of the reconstruction of the city, which was associated with significant debt. The figure reaches with one hand into a better future, while with the other hand it pushes the evils of the past away. Make sure to go to bed timely, for an early rise on the last morning of the Historian's Route.

After waking up well-rested, have a small breakfast or coffee and check out early to drive towards Pforzheim to experience a public art work developed especially for the Ornamenta, that only functions during sunrise and sunset. Park your car at the Parkhotel Pforzheim and walk across the road towards the Enz river to spot the rainbow under a clear sunny sky. Sitting on a pole on the river bank, a bronze sculpture somewhere between a hooded teenager and a forest elf looks into Germany’s former ‘Goldstadt’ city of Pforzheim. At the right time with the right natural sunlight, the sculpture emits a mist, creating a temporary artificial rainbow – a surreal image that borderlines between the natural and technical. The public artwork “Haug Rainbow Fountain” is the outcome of a three-year period of development, merging craft and technology.

After enjoying the rainbow, or in case of a cloudy morning staring at the waterfront and bronze sculpture only, you should make your way over to the buffet of the 1991 built Parkhotel restaurant to enjoy an extensive, maybe second, breakfast set in an eighties style ambiance. Read up on the local and international news, go over your photos taken during the Historian's Route and take a walk into the city center for a last exhibition visit.

On a final note to the Historian's Route, the municipal Stadtmuseum Pforzheim organizes a group exhibition with historic and contemporary works reacting to Ornamenta’s 'Inhalatorium' theme. To visit, walk towards the Pforzheim Gallery located inside the historic Kollmar & Jourdan building, a former jewelry production place. In the exhibition, titled 'Frischluftkultur,' you will encounter spa town tourism of the past and present, depicted with works from the contemporary art collection of the City of Pforzheim and the archives of the City of Pforzheim. After picking up your car, consider passing by ZKM, the center for art and media in Karlsruhe, on your way home.