November 19, 2013 – The 2013 Saxony Industrial Culture Prize was awarded for the first time on November 4, 2013 in the Saxon Ministry for Science and the Arts. The award honored Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) for its commitment to business as represented by the Workshop Museum of the Printing Arts in Leipzig. The prize is 10,000 euros, donated by the Johann-Andreas Schubert foundation and the Vereinigung der Sächsischen Wirtschaft.
Together with the Free State of Saxony, the founders want to recognize projects, ideas, and commitment that preserve, maintain, and develop the wealth of industrial culture in Saxony.
G&D won the prize for its support of the Museum of the Printing Arts in Leipzig over many years. This was converted into a foundation in 1999 on the initiative of one of G&D’s shareholders, Verena von Mitschke-Collande. This allowed a private collection from the graphics industry to be saved from asset stripping and destruction. The establishment of the G&D foundation in May 2010 also provided for long-term basic financing for the museum, which is one of the areas the foundation aims to promote.
From left to right: Dr. Susanne Richter, Director of the Museum of the Printing Arts, Leipzig, and Ulrich Spiegel, Factory Manager in Königstein.
The collection held in the Museum of the Printing Arts includes some 100 fully functional machines and devices that demonstrate three hundred years of history for printing, setting, and casting techniques. In addition to machines and presses for printed works, the museum houses a workshop for wood engraving, a bookbinding shop, and a type foundry where one of the last type founders in Germany is based. The Museum also promotes the transfer of knowledge about the cultural history of typesetting, printing, and bookbinding. This transfer is based on dialogue. Specialists in these professions that are now consigned to history explain and operate the machines and devices. Visitors are encouraged to touch the exhibits and have a go for themselves.
“There is no comparable institution which brings technology and craft to life to such a high quality for a wide audience, and that also creates new applications. The past and future are skillfully melded together,” praises Bodo Finger, President of Vereinigung der Sächsischen Wirtschaft e.V., in his honorific speech at the Workshop Museum. He went on to say that, with its foundation, G&D is preserving one of the last printing sites in Saxony and enlightening the general public about this branch of industry. “The winner of the first Industrial Culture Prize in Saxony is a beacon for Saxon industry,” he said.
Here is the G&D website.
And follow this link for more information on the Museum of the Printing Arts Leipzig.
Here you can learn more about the Saxony Industrial Culture Prize.