The toxic building – How Jan Glisman turned the deconstruction of the Deutsche Welle towers into a multimedia art project

All Jan Glisman really wanted to do was to “just” document a spectacular event in Cologne: The demolition of all three parts of the 138-metre-high Deutsche Welle broadcasting tower, the third-highest building in the city. The funding had been approved, the plans worked out, but then – everything turned out quite differently. The risk to the broadcasting operations of Deutschlandfunk, which is connected by a common foundation slab, and the spread of asbestos fibres feared by residents in the neighbourhood had prevented the blasting. “Blasting” therefore became “deconstruction”. A process that was to extend over a total of five years and challenged Glisman to document precisely that period. Huge numbers of photos, video material and drawings were initially created without any concrete idea of what was to happen with them …

Jan Glisman – When and where does existence begin?

Cologne-Mülheim. My present goal leads me to the site of former industrial halls, located directly on the banks of the Rhine. This is where Jan Glisman’s studio is. The artist became particularly well-known through spectacular actions, by means of which he initiated unpredictable processes for his sculptural work. But more about that later…

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