HERR HAGENBECK

THE BACKGROUND

I spent two semesters in the Communication Design programme at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg with a scholarship. Before the semester started, we had a week-long lithography workshop. It was the second time I’ve worked with this printing technique and I enjoyed it a lot. As I’ve just arrived to the city, I started close to my new home: our dormitory. The street where it was located was named after Carl Hagenbeck, a controversial zoo director living in the mid 19th to early 20th century. He created the modern idea of a zoo: without bars, displaying the animals in surroundings resembling their natural habitat. His zoo, which is still open today, was the first one worldwide of it’s kind.

 

THE DESIGN

After doing sketches is the zoo of the animals and buildings, I have designed a two-coloured poster featuring the so called “Eismeerpanorama”, which Hagenbeck first exhibited at the Great Industrial Exposition in Berlin in 1896. Over a pool of icy water, different arctic animals were displayed on a a huge berg of rock. Its modern version is still part of the zoo today.