sportsdirect: Forever Geek

Monday, May 31, 2010

Forever Geek

Posted: 31 May 2010 04:49 AM PDT

In 1926 Dr. Fritz Kahn created a poster of the human bodily functions, Man as Industrial Palace, based on mechanics. Dr. Kahn was famous for using mechanics metaphors to explain the workings of the human body.

Dr. Fritz Kahn (1888-1968) was a gynecologist in Berlin and a world-famous popular science writer who illustrated the form and function of the human body with spectacular, modern man-machine analogies. In the 1920s, his magnum opus, "Das Leben des Menschen" (The Life of Man) – a five-volume series – was renowned as a German accomplishment of global repute. In the 1930s, his books were banned and burned by the Nazis, then edited by Kahn's publisher and reissued as plagiarisms with a superimposed anti-Semitic chapter.

Last year Henning M. Lederer a Master of Arts graduate has created an animation based on Dr. Khan’s poster of “Man as Industrial Palace”. Dr. Khan’s work has become very popular now a days amongst designers and historians.

This animation has awaken a fascination within me with Dr. Khan’s work. There is a book of him currently for sale, Fritz Kahn: Man Machine Maschine Mensch, which I wouldn’t mind having.

I have always had an interest in the World War 2 era in Europe, I excelled at history in high-school thanks to my fascination with that time. And reading about Dr. Khan made me realize I never really thought about the people and their works that where banned by the Nazis.

Henning M. Lederer’s idea of animating Dr. Khan’s work is fascinating and I wonder if there are more works like these that can be animated bringing them to attention again in these modern times. Khan’s and Lederer’s work wouldn’t miss stand in a school class to teach children.

I looked online if the poster is for sale but I can’t find one source that sells the original. The only way to get a poster is by buying the book.