A video by Christoph Schneider, Uta Sommer, Melina Radecke, Oliver Zauzig (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Andreas Linsbauer (Universität Zürich)

The video presents a section of an important historical relief map of the Swiss Alps and shows how the retreat of glaciers as a result of man-made climate change relates to it. The starting point of the video is the culturally and historically valuable topographical relief with the Aletsch Glacier at its centre. It was created over 200 years ago by the Swiss topographer and relief artist Joachim Eugen Müller (1752-1833) for the Berlin Kunstkammer, the Cabinet of Curiosities in der Berlin Palace, and is now in the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace. It is the only remaining part of the Alpine relief, which once consisted of ten individual parts and was a major attraction in the Berlin Kunstkammer at the beginning of the 19th century. Müller has reproduced the mountain landscape in great detail, true to scale and almost exactly. In the video, details of the relief are shown and their landscape-shaping significance is explained.

The current appearance of the Alps is largely shaped by past and present glaciation. The largest Alpine glacier is the Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss canton of Valais. Although its extent and thickness are still impressive, it also provides a direct indication of human-induced climate change. The changes to the landscape are impressively presented in the film. In particular, the rise in temperature recorded over the last 200 years is clearly manifested in the accelerated melting of Alpine glaciers. The consequences for people and nature are already fundamental today. Müller’s relief illustrates the situation before the onset of industrialisation and thus before human-induced climate change. The video communicates the insight that the consequences of climate change are a reality that needs to be made visible, tangible and understandable. It emphasizes that culture and nature are not in opposition, but are mutually influencing spheres on our planet.

Elaboration of contents: Christoph Schneider, Uta Sommer, Melina Radecke, Oliver Zauzig (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Andreas Linsbauer (Universität Zürich)
Production: Jörg Schulze (CMS, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Speaker: Camilla Leathem (Berlin University Alliance)

Object of the month February 2023

Video is available on the HU YouTube channel
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