Poster of The Anniversary Exhibition on the Occasion of 800 Years Graz Anonymous, 1928

Politically Turned Cityscape

In 1928, the City of Graz celebrated its then uncontested first mention in a document 800 years before with a large exhibition of city images in the Industriehalle (Industrial Hall), the antecedent of the Stadthalle Graz. It was not merely coincidence that a representation of the Renaissance fortress from the 17th century was selected as the subject of the poster. Yet, unlike the original, this one was turned 45 degrees in order to point to the southeast instead of the south. This was supposed to express offensively the German Nationalist identity of Graz as a “bulwark against the southeast”.