museum appendix

On panel 6b of the Conscripted to Work exhibit on the forced labor of Czech citizens by the Third Reich is an architectural axon drawing labled "Work and Disciplinary Camp, Plana and Luznici". It's not the kind of blueprint necessary for construction; rather it is a more artistic rendering in black ink and three shades of watercolor, the kind of illustrative image one makes to sell the future beauty of a proposed plan.

Someone made this plan, one person, probably an architect or a landscape architect like me, and I wonder if, when the pen was set down after inking in the compass rose, he or she felt that satisfaction of a job well done. It's a nice plan. The lines are square and the trees cast appropriately eliptical shadows and the legend is neatly lettered. The small rectangles of grass are stippled. Tiny watchtowers and floodlights evenly punctuate the perimeter fence. The red watercolor pigment of the roofs pools in the corners, popping the buildings right off the page.

What if this was the work you loved to do?
In Germany, in 1943?