Hansaplatz

2025

Heinz Peter Knes, Heidi Specker
Grotto Berlin

14.8 x 21.0 cm, 28 pages, German text, 1,300 copies, Mail art

Hansaplatz, Heinz Peter Knes and Heidi Specker, 2025

Hansaplatz is a 28-page A5 publication in which Knes and Specker present the urban space—their immediate neighborhood in the Hansaviertel—from a personal yet documentary perspective. The images are complemented by their conversation, which focuses on the writers Ingeborg Bachmann and Witold Gombrowicz; both lived in the Hansaviertel in the 1960s thanks to a fellowship at the Academy of Arts.
The publication was designed by Lina Grumm (HIT) and financed through advertisements from local businesses and institutions. In early May, 1,300 copies were distributed unaddressed as mail art to all households in the Hansaviertel—as a gift to the neighborhood and an invitation to see the quarter through different eyes.

Published by GROTTO, May 2025

Hansaplatz, Heinz Peter Knes and Heidi Specker, 2025