topotheque Graz

The Graz Museum launched a topotheque for Graz in autumn 2019.
The topotheque is a jointly created and edited online archive as well as a regional historical reference tool. The aim is to preserve and make visible scattered local historically relevant material and knowledge that is kept in private hands. Images, sound recordings, videos, objects, written documents as well as additional information on the memorabilia are digitally preserved in the topotheque for collective memory and joint remembering. The originals remain with the owners, who together with the “topothecaries” compile the knowledge as well as the history of the “objects” and stories around them. All holdings and information on these are linked to each other via keywords, dating and location on the current city map and can thus be optimally searched and filtered by users. Together they form a topotheque Graz network with contact persons for interested contributors:

Your personal contribution: Do you have something for the Topotheque Graz?

Thematic areas for topotheque material can be, for example:

• Lost and existing gastronomy and coffee house culture in Graz (e.g. Nordstern, …)
• Nightlife in Graz (e.g. Parkhouse, De Gustibus, Niesenberger, Kulturhauskeller, …)
• Lost and existing businesses / shops in Graz (e.g. Kienreich, Koch, …)
• “Graz celebrates”—public events in the Graz city area (e.g. carnival, advent, …)
• “Upheavals” (e.g. construction sites, demonstrations, citizens’ initiatives, …)
• Typical (temporary) spots in Graz (e.g. Schloßberg, Weikhard Clock, Oskar in Herrengasse, …)
• Sports in Graz (e.g. marathon, ice skating, football, …)
• Childhood memories of Graz (e.g. feeding squirrels in the Stadtpark, Hilmteich, tobogganing on the Augarten Hill, …)
• Graz excursion destinations or “View of Graz from outside or above” (e.g. Plabutsch, Gösting Castle ruin, Schwarzl bathing area, …)
• Extraordinary events (e.g. “Winter of the Century 1986”, “Sturm is Austrian Champion 1998”, “Total Eclipse of the Sun 1999”, …)

We are looking for and looking forward to your personal objects, your knowledge and your stories. Contact us!

Topothecaryies at the Graz Museum

Christina Rajković, MA MA BA BA
+43 664 8309338

Mag. Robert Tendl
+43 664 3433894

topothek@stadt.graz.at

Focus Districts: the topotheque Graz Network
In addition to private lenders who make their personal memorabilia available to the topotheque Graz as digital loans, a growing topotheque Graz network is also being developed. Cooperation in the district with district and neighbourhood centres or offices as well as neighbourhood initiatives start directly where many people can be found who are interested in their immediate environment and its history and who want to work and remember together. Only regional resources can ensure that local history is comprehensive and in-depth. Therefore, the principle of the topotheque is that its administrators and contributors are anchored in the community. Being familiar with the local circumstances, they are able to ask regionally relevant questions, find historical sources and, with their local knowledge, they are able to provide high-quality keywords, enrich the entries with information and locate them.
Together they form a topotheque Graz network with contact persons for interested contributors: Although the focus shifts from one neighbourhood to the next, the cooperation partners remain part of the topotheque Graz project and continue to make a significant contribution as permanent contact points.
The first step was taken by the Geidorf district in cooperation with the Neighbourhood Initiative Margaretenbad. From spring to autumn 2019, together with the neighbourhood initiative and all interested contributors, contributions to the Geidorf focus district were collected, saved and scanned, data were entered and supplemented with information or stories. Now we have switched to the other bank of the Mur and have been focusing on the Annenviertel from January 2020.