It is already dark in the stable yard of the Dresden Residenzschloss when Jutta Kappel steps in to the microphone, the last speaker here at the “Open Mike”, which was kept ready for Dirk Syndram's companions, so that the director's praise continues even after the director's solemn farewell could be sung - for hours.
But what are hours versus twenty-eight years?
This is how long the collaboration between the two art historians Kappel and Syndram lasted at the Green Vault, the heart of Dresden's treasure art landscape, and now at the finale we finally learn the secret formula for their success: It's the museum μ.
Andreas Platthaus
Responsible editor for literature and literary life.
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In the natural sciences, the Greek letter μ denotes a tiny quantity. Of course, this does not mean Syndram, whose reputation, obsessions and baroque habitus Marion Ackermann, General Director of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD), compared at the beginning of the celebration with August the Strong, the most manic Saxon collector before Syndram. No, this μ (pronounced “mü”) was not only what constituted the effort, but also the joys of curating, explains Kappel. It describes the minor but decisive change that the perfectionist Syndram used to make to presentations at the last second. "Syndram is not through yet", that was always the last sentence of the team before an opening. The director had the last word.After Kappel's reminiscence, the Open Mike was closed. What else should one have said?
But the celebrations continued into the night in the stable courtyard, a tournament area by which Prince Elector Christian I had the renaissance castle of his predecessors extended in 1588: framed by the older facilities of the Georgenbau and the office building as well as the buildings of the Elector's New Stables, which were built on Christian's behalf and the “Long Gangs”, a narrow arcade building over a hundred meters based on the Florentine model. On the upper floor the prince set up an ancestral gallery, for which he had 46 larger-than-life pictures made by his court painter Heinrich Göding the Elder, showing real and imaginary ancestors, including a certain Harderich, who founded the House of Saxony before the turn of the century should.This gallery was used to connect the previous castle with the new representative stable building, so it was a hinge piece of the residence. How fitting that it could now be handed over to the public in its newly restored and furnished splendor to say goodbye to Syndram.
How an ancestral gallery became a rifle gallery
However, no longer as an ancestral gallery, but as a “rifle gallery”.
This is what the Lange Gang had become in 1733 when August the Strong died and his son, after ascending to the throne, continued his father's plan to reorganize the electoral collections and found a new place here for the weapons collection.
Almost two thousand rifles and pistols were finally gathered in showcases on either side of the seemingly endless narrow room, with portraits of ancestors still in between.
It was the room in the residence that demonstrated the Albertine princes' claim to power in pictures and deeds.
Because although many of the firearms were ostentatious objects and not intended for normal use, they represented military violence.
That is why the objects shown here are now part of the holdings of the armory.
Dirk Syndram was also its director. In 2006 he was given this position in addition to being head of the Green Vault. This only confirmed what had been unofficially valid for a long time: Syndram was the new lord of the castle in the residence. In the decade before, he had designed its museum design and just in 2006 reached the climax of his career with the opening of the Historical Green Vault, which was reconstructed in the form created for August the Strong. As early as 2004, however, Syndram had set up the “New Green Vault”, a benchmark modern presentation of the majority of the electoral art chamber treasures, what he called “treasure art”. After that everyone knew that no one had a similar feeling for the connection between reconstruction and representation,and in the years that followed, Syndram and his staff created breathtaking departments such as the “Turkish Chamber”, the giant hall, the “Worldview and Knowledge” presentation in the Renaissance wing and, most recently in 2019, the baroque parade rooms. Here was demonstrated what a castle reconstruction can do - to the enthusiasm of everyone. So in Berlin you only had to look two hundred kilometers to the south.