Anselm Kiefer’s concrete towers: fragile architectures, haunted memorials

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on a widely known but surprisingly little-analysed phenomenon in Anselm Kiefer’s oeuvre, namely his stacked concrete towers. The towers go by different names, and are each made unique by the artist’s multiple different appendages and interventions, as well as by their varied physical contexts. Yet their forms, made from concrete casts from the interior of shipping containers, stacked precariously upon one another, is recognisable and repeated. The essay discusses in depth Kiefer’s architectural experiments and how they are portrayed. Through a detailed analysis of the different intellectual and physical contexts in which the stacked concrete towers operate, it explores their potential meanings, and examines how they contribute to Kiefer’s oeuvre more widely.