The existence of a letter foundry is at stake

Andreas Stötzner

The Haus für Industriekultur Darmstadt (Germany) hosts an old and working letter fondry, but seems to intend to get rid of it. If you’re interested you may sign a petition to support its further existence.

Or you may approach the dirctor in order to suggest another solution … ?

Stephen Coles

Critical news! Gerstenberg is one of the last places in the world that still casts metal foundry type from the 20th century. I can think of only a couple in the U.S., and they certainly don’t have the huge range of matrices that Gerstenberg has. Here are photos from a 2019 visit by Dan Reynolds. 

Dan Reynolds

As far as I know, the typefounders in the US are casting type with a Monotype-machine kind of alloy. Gerstenberg’s typefoundry casts types from automatic typecasters, with a foundry-type allow, which is more durable. While foundry-type matrices, with “adaptors,” can be placed into Monotype-style casters, this is more of a hack than a substitute for Gerstenberg.

There are several issues that one can read about in German media that relate the the threatened closure of Gerstenberg’s foundry. The first is that, as of last week, the museum building that the foundry is in was closed for structural safety reasons; according to a report, the exterior walls are in danger of collapse (take from this what you will). Mr. Gerstenberg is still permitted to access the building and has also had visitors in the mean time, but the printing museum elsewhere in the structure is closed, even to the volunteers who maintained it.

It has also been reported in the media that talks are underway between Mr. Gerstenberg and the Klingspor Museum, which for bureaucratic reasons is a more realistic solution than museums in Mainz or Leipzig could be.

Finally, the matter of the museum and the foundry is also being discussed in the Darmstadt city council. Although the building they are in is managed by a Hessian state museum, the two forms of government could conceivably come to some sort of solution. However, the Hessian state government is currently being reformed with a new governing coalition. Sine the Green Party will not be part of the new government, the minister responsible for museums will also change, but it may still be weeks until the new minister is agreed upon. Whether a new minister would bring positive changes is another matter in-and-of itself.

The success of the petition to date has been repeatedly reported on in the local media and has been mentioned both within the Hessian state parliament and the Darmstadt city council. Your signatures on the petition are indeed important! Without them, the foundry may have effectively been closed down weeks or months ago.

donat raetzo

I've forwarded the plea to a couple of friends and got back the URL of a small type workshop: https://www.parnassia.org/

John Savard

Dan Reynolds said:

As far as I know, the typefounders in the US are casting type with a Monotype-machine kind of alloy.

Kelsey used to do that for their bargain line of types - but they did take advantage of fitting the Monotype machine with the modification to allow use of something closer to a real type alloy that you mentioned.

Dan Reynolds said:

There are several issues that one can read about in German media that relate the the threatened closure of Gerstenberg’s foundry. The first is that, as of last week, the museum building that the foundry is in was closed for structural safety reasons; according to a report, the exterior walls are in danger of collapse (take from this what you will). Mr. Gerstenberg is still permitted to access the building and has also had visitors in the mean time, but the printing museum elsewhere in the structure is closed, even to the volunteers who maintained it.

There is one bright spot in this.

Even if the new minister responsible does not know or care anything about typography, he could care about the museum as an architectural resource. So there is a second reason for saving it.

EDIT: The fact the building was managed by the government of the state of Hessen is also good news, given the circumstances. On reflection, I was concerned that, if the building was owned by a private charity, politicians could take the attitude: you bought a museum building on the cheap because it was expensive to maintain and legally protected from being torn down, and then you didn't maintain it either. And now you want us to bail you out of the consequences of your choice to cut corners.

Dan Reynolds

According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Darmstädter Echo newspapers, Mister Gerstenberg will not be allowed to enter the building that his foundry is located inside of any longer after December 31, 2023.

James Puckett

Will everything in the building after December 31 be lost when the building is demolished?

Dan Reynolds

The building will not be demolished and the items inside it will not be thrown out, at least that is not anticipated (although they may be moved to another museum, perhaps, some day). The building is/will be simply closed for everyone except employees of the museum overseeing the building, who have nothing to do with the printing collections or the typefoundry.

Andreas Stötzner

Thank you Dan Reynolds for the updates. I really hope for a positive solution in favour of this unique workshop. After all, the Rhein-Main area is, historically, the craddle of letter casting. It would be a damn shame if this piece of heritage gets scrapped.