missing link_

2023 - 2024

Mischa Kuball identifies a situation in the urban environment of Graf-Adolf-Straße in Düsseldorf that often happens but is hardly noticed. Düsseldorf's central synagogue once stood on Kasernenstraße. In the course of the November pogroms of 1938, it was set on fire on November 10 and finally demolished a few weeks later.

Today, only a discreet memorial installed at the side of the road commemorates the monumental building. In the vicinity of the memorial stone, buildings such as the neoclassical Walzstahlhaus, the building of the local health insurance fund built in 1905 in the style of reform architecture and the AOK building built in the 1920s in the Neues Bauen style characterize the cityscape.

Mischa Kuball rediscovered this ensemble of architectural and socio-historical heterogeneity, which was created in less than 40 years, along its missing elements, connections and contemporary witnesses:

"As part of the re-connotation and the idea of developing Graf-Adolf-Straße in Düsseldorf as a cultural narrative image, I would like to draw attention to the destroyed synagogue and the likewise destroyed rabbi's house of the Jewish community in Düsseldorf and the surrounding area. Currently, only a memorial stone refers to this cultural center of Jewish life - almost invisible in Düsseldorf's cityscape when viewed from close up. missing link_ wants to focus on this historical significance in 2023 by means of an initially temporary and later permanent installation - and use the surrounding ensemble with the Walzstahlhaus and Ortskrankenkasse to keep the memories of this missing element alive." - Mischa Kuball

Test phase