Designed to capture the lesser-known history of the 1933 transportation of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg from Hamburg to London, for me, this 1:75 model of a ship embodies how material literacy is tacitly acquired through the model-making process.

A key moment occurred when I had to carry the finished model. It felt lighter than the MDF sheets from which it was constructed; not only because a compact model is easier to carry than large MDF sheets, but also because I had established a relationship with the object. I touched every layer, assembled it carefully, and glued and finished it. This, along with the energy I had invested in producing accurate drawings for laser-cutting, gave me a keen awareness of the material.

Through the material, I built a relationship with the (hi)story of the ship and acquired knowledge that is tacitly held between humans and non-humans.

Submitted by
Mara Trübenbach is an architectural designer and scholar. She holds an Architecture MSc from Bauhaus University, and is undertaking her PhD at AHO (Oslo). Part of the TACK network, she is strongly interested in the intersection of craft, material and alternative design methods in architecture, including performance and theatre studies.

This object is part of the TACK Exhibition “Unausgesprochenes Wissen / Unspoken Knowledge / Le (savoir) non-dit”, in the section “Making and Materiality”.