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Durchblickstation

English translation: then and now viewing station

15:16 Nov 6, 2014
German to English translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Tourism & Travel / Viewing device
German term or phrase: Durchblickstation
Looking for suggestions on rendering the term for the fixture referred to in this article:
http://www.meinstutensee.de/2013/02/ubergabe-von-durchblicks...
I need a succint, meaningful term that would also be understood without a lengthy explanation.

Thanks
Robert Schlarb
Local time: 21:57
English translation:then and now viewing station
Explanation:
My attempt at a term that might be understood by a tourist. This term would apply to the entire fixture, whereas "viewing frame" really only refers to the window-like feature forming part of the entire display. It also gets across the comparison idea.

See the original design referred to in the Stutensee article posted (hover over the vertical lines on the right to see all of the images)

Gelber Rahmen: Situation vorher – weißer Durchblick-Rahmen: Situation jetzt.
Ein spielerisches Element weckt Interesse …
… und sorgt für Durchblick.
Rückseite mit Projektdaten und Lageplan.
Dokumentation des Erreichten
http://www.xxdesignpartner.de/projekte/ausstellungen.html#th...

Here is the closest thing I could find in English. This Then and Now Tour gives visitors, among other things a frame or framer:

A blue cardboard frame that allowed visitors to better frame a scene for comparison to photos in the booklet

There are also fixed frames:

Stop 2 had a metal frame to help visitors look at the current scene and compare it to a historic photograph. (This metal frame looked like the frame we provided visitors in their bag of materials.) Stop 5 (Figure 4) had a similar metal frame to help visitors line up the transparency (Figure 3) with the current view of the rotunda.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/vre/pdf/thenNow_rp_07.pdf
Selected response from:

Alison MacG
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:57
Grading comment
Definitely a case for distributing points among several contributors, but this one also appealed the most to my proofreader, so you win with a majority of two
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
4 +3"peephole to the past"
philgoddard
3 +4a window to the past
Ramey Rieger (X)
3 +1Neighbourhood Nostalgia Boards
Cillie Swart
3 +1viewing frame
Horst Huber (X)
3 +1time passage
Cilian O'Tuama
3transparent history station
Michael Martin, MA
2 +1then and now viewing station
Alison MacG
3Viewport board
mek0n
2on-street historical viewing frame
Jaime Hyland


Discussion entries: 5





  

Answers


32 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +3
"peephole to the past"


Explanation:
As the article explains, these are display boards explaining the history of specific buildings and other sights, with rectangular cutouts framing the buildings so you can compare their current appearance to what they used to look like.

I've put the term in quote marks because it will be a new concept to readers, just as the German term is explained in the article.

You won't find this in Google - it's a very unusual concept, possibly unique to this town, so I've coined a term.

philgoddard
United States
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 32

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Dorothy Schaps: Yeah! I was trying to think of something along the lines of 'peephole' too!
23 mins
agree  Cillie Swart: I really like this - it makes perfect sense
30 mins
neutral  Jaime Hyland: "peephole", apart from its Police Academy I to IV associations, is too small.
19 hrs
agree  Wendy Streitparth: Yes, my instant idea too.
22 hrs
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47 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +1
Neighbourhood Nostalgia Boards


Explanation:
I have also made up a term - I like this because it specifically refers to the fact that the boards say something about the history of specific area or neighbourhoods.

Example sentence(s):
  • The Neighbourhood Nostalgia Boards provide a holistic view into the area's history, helping them to make sense of its current state.
Cillie Swart
South Africa
Local time: 21:57
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
neutral  philgoddard: This is good, but it loses the idea of the hole, which is important.
8 mins
  -> Neighbourhood Rabbit Hole? (with special thanks to Alice in Wonderland)
agree  Dorothy Schaps: This is great too! It could be more help to Robert as I get the impression that he doesn't have much space for a detailed explanation.
12 mins
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1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +4
a window to the past


Explanation:
pretty banal, but more or less self explanatory

Ramey Rieger (X)
Germany
Local time: 21:57
Works in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 56

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Edwin Miles: Banal? Perhaps. But this seems a relatively conservative situation. This is what I'd choose, or possibly "window on the past."
4 hrs
  -> The main thing, is that just about anyone can imagine something here. Thanks!
agree  James Nixon: I agree with this option as well as "peephole to the past" but putting my agreement here as it sounds more natural and won't require as much explaining.
5 hrs
  -> I like peephole, but I believe it is not general enough in this context and could generate confusion among ESL tourists. Thank you!
agree  Donald Jacobson
11 hrs
  -> Thank you Donald and have a lovely weekend!
agree  Harald Moelzer (medical-translator)
15 hrs
  -> Thanks Harald, enjoy your weekend, if you can!
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3 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +1
viewing frame


Explanation:
It focuses the mind of the viewer on a specific feature. When Le Corbuiser built a house on Lake Geneva, he deliberately limited the view the resident had of the lake's expanse.

Horst Huber (X)
United States
Local time: 15:57
Native speaker of: Native in GermanGerman

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Jaime Hyland: It's a physical oblong hole made in a public information board for people to look through. Like the frame made by a film director with his index fingers and thumbs of his two hands, except cut into a public sign. It's pictured on the website posted.
16 hrs
  -> Thanks.
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4 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
transparent history station


Explanation:
I don’t think the idea of a hole is as important here as Phil suggests simply because Germans don’t really think of a (physical) hole in phrases like “Ich hab’ da keinen Durchblick mehr’ or ‘Ich muss mir erst mal Durchblick verschaffen’ etc. This colloquial meaning (Durchblick = comprehension/understanding) is the one that most people will be familiar with and I don’t recall any instances where the article talked about any kind of setup or device for people to peep through (= durchblicken). That said, that doesn’t mean that my entry is any good, but we’ll see.


Michael Martin, MA
United States
Local time: 15:57
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in GermanGerman, Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 46

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
neutral  Jaime Hyland: It appears to be an actual hole in a sign. It's pictured on the site.
15 hrs
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1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +1
time passage


Explanation:
now I can't get Al Stewart out of my head

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 6 hrs (2014-11-06 22:08:32 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Really showing your age here I only know the 2004 version. :-)

Cilian O'Tuama
Germany
Local time: 21:57
Works in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 80
Notes to answerer
Asker: Not sure that's the best answer, Cilian, but now I can't get "Roads to Moscow" out of my head

Asker: In all fairness, I wasn't shaving yet at the time ;-)


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Cillie Swart: Nice, gets the hole concept in cleverly
0 min
  -> thanks (the "whole concept" wäre mir lieber)
neutral  Jaime Hyland: It's not a passage ... it looks more like an oblong hole. Like the frame made by a film director with his index fingers and thumbs of his two hands, except cut into a public sign.
18 hrs
  -> yeah, like a tunnel, or passage...// allowing the viewer to pass back in time
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19 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 2/5Answerer confidence 2/5
on-street historical viewing frame


Explanation:
This suggestion probably describes fairly accurately the idea shown in the picture on the site to which the asker linked.

Poetry it ain't!



Jaime Hyland
Local time: 21:57
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
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1 day 29 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 2/5Answerer confidence 2/5 peer agreement (net): +1
then and now viewing station


Explanation:
My attempt at a term that might be understood by a tourist. This term would apply to the entire fixture, whereas "viewing frame" really only refers to the window-like feature forming part of the entire display. It also gets across the comparison idea.

See the original design referred to in the Stutensee article posted (hover over the vertical lines on the right to see all of the images)

Gelber Rahmen: Situation vorher – weißer Durchblick-Rahmen: Situation jetzt.
Ein spielerisches Element weckt Interesse …
… und sorgt für Durchblick.
Rückseite mit Projektdaten und Lageplan.
Dokumentation des Erreichten
http://www.xxdesignpartner.de/projekte/ausstellungen.html#th...

Here is the closest thing I could find in English. This Then and Now Tour gives visitors, among other things a frame or framer:

A blue cardboard frame that allowed visitors to better frame a scene for comparison to photos in the booklet

There are also fixed frames:

Stop 2 had a metal frame to help visitors look at the current scene and compare it to a historic photograph. (This metal frame looked like the frame we provided visitors in their bag of materials.) Stop 5 (Figure 4) had a similar metal frame to help visitors line up the transparency (Figure 3) with the current view of the rotunda.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/vre/pdf/thenNow_rp_07.pdf


Alison MacG
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:57
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 20
Grading comment
Definitely a case for distributing points among several contributors, but this one also appealed the most to my proofreader, so you win with a majority of two

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  billcorno (X): I like your idea. Maybe "time-comparison"?
8 hrs
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1 day 15 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
Viewport board


Explanation:
I've pinched the term viewport from computer graphics (and slightly changed its reference).
Cf. Wikipaedia: "In web browsers, the viewport is the visible portion of the entire document. If the document is larger than the viewport, the user can shift the viewport around by scrolling." (Document here corresponds to full real-world panorama.)
Anyway viewport is something to work with in my view and also immediately understandable

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 Tag23 Stunden (2014-11-08 14:44:36 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

History viewports?

mek0n
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:57
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
neutral  James Nixon: It might be immediately understandable in your field, but with the number of second language speakers that will be reading the English, I doubt they would readily understand this concept.
1 day 18 hrs
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