ACFNY RECOMMENDS | FILM SCREENING | RAIMUND ABRAHAM MEMORIAL SCREENING

Selected excerpts from the films of Jonas Mekas

“The architect Raimund Abraham, a close and devoted friend of Anthology Film Archives since its inception, died in a car crash on March 4th 2010 in Los Angeles. It was Raimund who helped me to acquire from NYC (in an auction) our current, Second Avenue/Second Street building. He also supervised (with no fee) its transformation from a Small Court House (there were 14 prison cells in it) into the film museum/cinema that it is now. And it was Raimund who, while still teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design (later he joined the Cooper Union), made a barrel of extraordinary white wine for Anthology’s opening on December 1st, 1970.

He was a great friend, a great cook, and a great architect. To the city of NY he gave the 52nd Street Austrian Cultural Forum building, which the New York Times described as one of the two most important pieces of modern architecture in NY (the other being Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum). Last spring, shortly before his death, Raimund completed designs for an extension to Anthology which would provide a larger library, a cafeteria, and expanded archival spaces. Budgeted at ca. $12,000,000, it is one of Anthology’s next fund-raising challenges.

Raimund was a very special friend of Anthology’s, and he will be greatly missed.”

– Jonas Mekas

MUSIKERHAUS: Placing the Foundation Stone 2006
speech by Raimund Abraham and Karl Heinrich Müller
Traudi Messini, 23 minutes, 2010

“Maybe I would like to say, perhaps there really is not an age of deeds anymore, but there is still an age of the doer…And in this spirit, I would like to declare [Karl Heinrich Müller] a revolutionary.” –Raimund Abraham

“I hope that we do not just do what we know in this house, but that also an infinity of new unknowns will emerge. –Karl Heinrich Müller

These films are being shown in conjunction with the exhibition Musikerhaus: Raimund Abraham, currently on view in the Arthur A. Houghton Jr. Gallery of The Cooper Union

Presented by the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union