A Day in Basel (5/3)

This morning, I slept in late, which was wonderful since I hadn’t had enough sleep in the last couple of days, probably due to my adjustment to the time difference. BUT it meant a late start on the day.  Oh, well . . . after a brunch buffet at the hostel, I set off for the Papiermuseum or Paper Museum.  This was the ONE thing I wanted to see on this trip to Basel.  The story is that last September, on a day when I came to Basel by myself, I arrived at the paper museum at 5:00 PM - closing time.  Although I pleaded with the people at the ticket booth, understandingly they didn’t let me in.  I’m not sure why I was so intrigued because the museum sure doesn’t get much of a write-up in the guide books. But I had a feeling it would be fascinating. Furthermore, since Erasmus stayed in Basel because the quality of the paper was so good (Fun fact from last year’s guided tour of Basel!), I figured paper must be important to Basel.  And I’m sure glad I persisted, because it was (both fascinating and important to Basel)!

The museum is set in an old paper mill, distinct because of a water wheel that constantly turns on the outside of the building. The exhibits are divided by floors, with papermaking happening on the ground floor. The visitor was offered the opportunity to make paper by running a “tray” through a tub of cloth rotting in water. (I’ve done this before, but with wood pulp, so I just watched.) The guy who was supervising was a young man who split his childhood between New York and Basel (poor guy . . .) and who will go to study in the United Kingdom. (We had a conversation . . .) When I saw that the paper was being made out of old linen, I got excited, thinking about the huge amount of linen waste we have in SF because of the tourist industry (sheets, tablecloths, etc.). An SFSU colleague has been working with her students to think of ways this fabric could be used in garment design. Well . . . why not make paper???? OK, so that would take us back a couple of centuries, but hey, it might be good for the earth!

Anyway, the ground floor is devoted to the making of paper – and eventually gets around to talking about wood pulp, as well as papyrus and parchment. There was also a description of watermarks, and how they were made. AND it talks about the need for paper for toilet paper, and touches on the cultural differences in how people use TP. (No, I won’t go there, but it was fascinating!)

The first floor addresses writing, and talks about how writing evolved. It shows examples of all kinds of writing – pictographs, and cuneiform, and various alphabets that take us up to the current time.  There also was the opportunity to try writing with a quill pen – and other kinds of pens that you dip in ink. (Shall I admit that I remember that???) There was a woman demonstrating how to seal letters with sealing wax – and I told her that was popular when I was a teenager. 

The second floor was devoted to the book – and to how books were copied by monks, and literacy was limited to a very few. (They pointed out that even kings at that time didn’t know how to read and write – and forgive the reference to politics, but it occurred to me that in 2018, there’s at least one leader who has kept that tradition.) There was a reading room for visitors to the museum, and a bunch of books on writing, printing and paper making – including children’s books -  that people could peruse.

The third and final floor is devoted to typesetting and printing. It was fascinating to follow the history of how typesetting and printing have evolved. After teaching “stereotypes” for years, I got to see a stereotype! It was also interesting to see how recently things began to change, such that it was only a few years, in the greater scheme of things, between typesetting and computers. Wow! Yes, technology is changing quickly right now, but at least in THAT field, the 20^th century meant a radical set of changes. Oh, and of course there were typewriters on display. I didn’t realize that, when typewriters were first invented, you couldn’t see what you had just written in front of you; what you had typed was hidden by the platen! Also, typewriters were invented initially as a way to enable blind people to write! (One more “this helps everybody” fact to add to the list of items created for people with disabilities!) On this floor, the visitor was able to print a line drawing of the museum on a small printer and then set type for his or her name, and print the name on the paper with the line drawing.  One of several, clever, hands-on activities for kids of all ages! Did I say I liked this museum???

From there, I walked along the Rhine and across a bridge to the Museum Tinguely. (I guess I had to come to Basel to learn about artists of the 20^th century!)  Jean Tinguely grew up here, and spent a lot of time in Paris. His work is sculpture with found objects. Unbelievable! There are all sorts of sculptures with moving parts and/or with noise (music???).  This is definitely art that is not beautiful, but it sure is interesting. The “masterpiece” housed in its own huge room in this 20-year-old museum is a piece called the Mengele-Death Dance. (This doesn’t translate, but there’s a German word for death dance that describes a piece of art in which couples – one a “real person,” from high society to farmer, and one a skeleton – are pictured dancing. The meaning is supposed to be that everyone is equal in death.) Mengele, of course, is the doctor who did the horrific experiments on concentration camp prisoners. It turns out that Mengele’s family had a company that produced farm equipment. Anyway, Tinguely composed a huge, 16- or 17-statue piece that includes part of an old piece of farm equipment in which the Mengele name is visible.

There was another exhibit at this museum that explored how musicians repeat phrases from their own work as they compose new pieces. I enjoyed the listening “booths” with 20^th century “classical” music, and the videos of “Fantasia” with Stravinsky’s music, as well as “2001: A Space Odyssey” with its music (can’t remember whose).

I shut down the museum – had just enough time to get a sense of the artist and the museum – and took a couple of trams back to the Markthalle.  This time it was Ethiopian food – one of my favorite cuisines. Yum. Now I’m back in the hostel, with my feet up, planning the next phase of my adventure.