The Opening of Leitz Park III
Leica Camera AG formally opened Leitz Park 3 on June 15 and 16, 2018. Leitz Park 3 encompasses several new buildings added to the Leitz Park campus which opened in 2014. These new buildings house the future Leica Museum, the Leica Archive, a new Leica Store, the Leica Akademie and the current exhibition of Eyes Wide Open. The event also marked the formal opening of the arcona Living Ernst Leitz Hotel and the dedication of the new headquarters of the CW Sonderoptic GmbH.
I was fortunate to be included among the 1,200 invited guests to the event, and I took advantage of the opportunity to attend. I had never been to the new Leitz Park before, even though I had been to Wetzlar and Leica too many times to count in the past. As a first time visitor, I was overwhelmed by the fantastic new campus that Andreas Kaufmann and his resurgent Leica company had built over the past few years. It was certainly a refreshing change from the survival mode the company had been in for decades. Having come directly from the Frankfurt airport after my overnight flight from the States, I wandered around for about a half hour admiring the campus, and then made my first priority getting something to eat. By this time, the only place still open was the Café Leitz. Over some amazing coffee and cake I was soon joined by so many of my Leica friends past and present. David Farkas and Josh Lehrer, Alan Weinschel our VP and my good friend Jonathan Slack were there. We were soon joined by Peter Karbe for an interesting talk about Leica lens design. I also paid my respects to Dr. Kaufmann and his wife, and their guest Jane Cui. Café Leitz became our home base over the next few days, where we watched the Leica world go by and I was re-acquainted with so many of my old Leica friends.
The next two days were a whirlwind of activity. Leica had erected a large tent, where several presentations and speeches from the company and government representatives were given. New CEO Matthius Harsch was one of the notables and Andreas Kaufmann spoke about where Leica stands today and the plans for the future. At the end of his remarks, he was presented with a beautiful Leica enameled dealer sign from the 30’s. He also introduced Dr. Andrea Zagato and the limited Zagato Edition M10 they had jointly created. Stefan Daniel and Karin Rehn-Kaufmann showed the new Leica C-Lux camera. Magnum photographer Bruce Davidson was inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame for 2018 and was presented with his own personalized M10. Bruce was interviewed on stage about his life’s work as a Leica photographer. A touching retrospective of Bruce’s work was shown, which highlighted his life’s work and how impressive and sensitive his photography is. Bruce’s work was also featured in the lobby of the main building of Leica AG at Leitz Park.
The next day, I attended presentations by good friend Lars Netopil introducing his impressive new book, Museum Leica and Craig Semetko on his approach to photography entitled Serendipity. I also toured the Eyes Wide Open photography exhibit, which was quite well done. Another highlight of the trip was the tour of the new Leica Archives, where I met Monika Bock, the new Manager of the collections. Leica has built a rather impressive facility for the Archives, with records and materials going back to Oskar Barnack along with many prototypes and one of a kind pieces of Leica history. I look forward to visiting the Archive again soon for a more detailed look into their collections.
Of course, I had the opportunity to renew old friendships with many people I have not seen at Leica in many years and to meet many people I had only known through cyberspace such as Jo Geier, Kevin Raber of Luminous Landscape, Fabrizio Pangrazi of My Leica Historica, Paolo Folzami, Douglas So (see my review of his book in this issue), Hari Subramanyam and “Chats” Chatterjee. I also found the time to stop by Lars Netopils’ fabulous Leica store and Ottmar Michaely’s Leica workshop, as well as making a pilgrimage to the old Leitz Factory, the Hausertor Werke and Eisenmarkt. Those who are going to Wetzlar this Fall for the Annual Meeting are in for a treat!
(top left) Craig Semetko (middle left) Ottmar Michaely in his shop (bottom left) Jonathan Slack in Lars Netopil's Leica Shopopposite page, clockwise from left
1. Cafe Leitz, our home base
2. Part of the collection in the new Leitz Archiv
3. Monika Bock, Manager of Collections, points out an interesting entry in the production records to Fabrizio Pangrazi and Paolo Folzami
4. Lots of room for records storage in the new Archiv
5. View from the new campus of Leitz Park
6. Peter Karbe explains a fine point of Leica lens design to David Farkas and Jonathan Slack