Der Mensch als Industriepalast
Der Mensch als Industriepalast by Fritz Kahn
Der Mensch als Industriepalast (Man as Industrial Palace) is a beautiful digital restoration of a vintage 1926 poster. Fritz Kahn (1888–1968) was a German-Jewish gynecologist and science author who developed a sophisticated graphic analogy between anatomy and machinery. His work was widely distributed in Germany until it was banned under the Nazi regime. He continued to publish, relocating to Palestine and Paris before escaping to the USA with the help of Albert Einstein. In a later work from 1943, he describes the relationship between man and machine: “[they] exhibit far-reaching similarities. Both derive their energy from the combustion of carbon, which they obtain from plants. Man, the weaker machine, utilizes fresh plants for fuel, while the locomotive, a stronger machine, uses fossilized plants in the form of coal.” There are several excellent images from his work in an online exhibition online at the National Institute of Health called Dream Anatomy, one of the digital projects of the excellent History of Medicine section of the US National Library of Medicine.
Through the use of often startling metaphors, both verbal and visual, Kahn succeeded in making complex principles of nature and technology comprehensible to a person of average education. For example, he compared the ear to an automobile. Some of his images foretell the future: for example the “physician of the future” “remotely monitoring his patient’s health from his desktop with the aid of various applets”. Many are simply “arresting because [they are] drastically extreme visualizations”: for example, “In 70 Jahren isst der Mensch 1400-mal sein Gewicht” (In 70 years a person will eat 1,400 times his weight) – which includes 40,000 cigars. Some of his drawings are inaccurate; when a friend pointed out one error, he responded: “Na ja, falsch ist es schon, aber verständlich!” (Yup, it’s wrong, but it’s understandable!”) His series Das Leben des Menschen (Human Life) was a best-seller.[2] He continued to publish in exile and was included in Who’s Who in the USA in the mid-1950s, but in Germany he was largely forgotten after the banning of his books.
Kahn described the human body as “the most competent machine in the world”, and his work reflects the technical and cultural state of development of Germany during the Weimar Republic. He himself did not draw well; the illustrations were made by others on his instructions. In Berlin, New York, and Copenhagen, he established studios for this purpose. His analogies between humans and machines have been interpreted by some artists, including Herbert Bayer and Eduardo Paolozzi. His graphics have also inspired some modern work, such as a trailer for the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and the ad for the music program Vamos Falar de Música on MTV Brasil. In 2009 the designer Henning Lederer animated Kahn’s “Der Mensch als Industriepalast” (Man as Industrial Palace) as part of a final student project, attracting online attention. As pioneering work in infographics, Kahn’s illustrations were returned to public attention in 2009 by Uta and Thilo von Debschitz’s monograph Fritz Kahn – Man Machine / Maschine Mensch, and the first exhibition of his work was held in 2010 at the Berlin Museum of the History of Medicine (de) at the Charité.
Notes and drafts for Kahn’s unfinished book The Natural History of Palestine are preserved in the Arthur and Fritz Kahn Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History in New York.
