The empty rooms of the luxuriously decorated House Dedel tell a story of former power and wealth. Their slightly deteriorated condition shows the age and history of the wallpaper, the carvings and marble, in which this project aims to expose another side: the servants’ reality.

Between astonishment and admiration, one thing is easily overlooked —the movements and living conditions of the house's inhabitants, their hierarchy and their strict division into two groups. A path, designed with transparent curtains, divides servants and masters’areas. It recreates the narrow, dark and unpleasant atmospheres, in contrast with the bright, warm and open spaces of the masters.

The project emphasises the degrading distribution of rights and space the former servants head to endure, while leading the visitors to the treasure of knowledge in the servants’ former hidden rooms. It aims to draw attention to a history marked by the contrasts official and unofficial and hidden or visible. Their traces can still be found in the architecture of the house today, which is carefully researched and catalogued in the publication House Dedel Atlas.

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collaboration with Malte Sonnenschein

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HOUSE DEDEL ATLAS

Research publication for the project "Following Footsteps"