Clock Museum (Vienna)

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Entrance area of ​​the clock museum
Clock museum in the Palais Obizzi

The clock museum is a museum of the city of Vienna . It is located in one of the oldest houses in Vienna, the Palais Obizzi (also: Harfenhaus ) in Vienna's 1st district, Inner City .

history

Antique clocks in the Vienna Clock Museum

On May 4, 1917, the City Council of Vienna decided to found a clock museum. The occasion was the offer made to Mayor Richard Weiskirchner (1861–1926) to purchase the 10,000-piece watch collection from Upper Austrian secondary school teacher Rudolf Kaftan (* 1870 in Haslach an der Mühl ; † 1961) and, associated with this, the establishment of a caftan under the direction standing specialist museum. In the same year, the heirs of the writer Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) offered her decommissioned watches for 301,000 crowns , so the amount would have been raised by July 15, 1917. This was achieved through donations from Karl von Škoda (1878–1929) and Bernhard Wetzler (1839–1922), a major Viennese industrialist and member of the manor house . With a view to the future financing of the institution, the Friends of the Watch Museum of the City of Vienna was formed on June 20, 1917 , and Mayor Weiskirchner took over its patronage .

In the Palais Obizzi, owned by the City of Vienna since 1901, the clock museum was initially set up in the Kaftan's apartment on the third floor. The museum opened on May 30, 1921 and Kaftan was appointed director. He brought 8000 clocks and an extensive specialist library into the museum. By the time it opened, the Leiner collection with 100 stock clocks and 400 clocks from the Nicolaus collection had already been purchased. During the time of National Socialism , clocks from expropriated Jews who were forced to sell or who were deported became the property of the museum. For example, the Jewish master watchmaker Alexander Grosz (* 1869 in Újvidék ), who had amassed a large watch collection and ran a workshop and shop in Vienna on Wipplingerstraße in the 1st district, had his trade license withdrawn in 1939 and the company was subsequently liquidated. Grosz and his wife Clara (* 1874) emigrated to the USA; Grosz's warehouse was closed before his emigration. The watch museum bought 70 watches and clockworks at a discount for 885.40 Reichsmarks from the acting administrator Josef Berger. Of the 70 clocks, 40 were still in existence after the end of World War II , including a baroque grandfather clock from around 1750 and pocket watches from around 1800. Restitution to his legal successor is planned. In November 1941, clocks from the Albert Pollaks († 1943) collection, to which the museum had registered a claim in a wish list , also went to the museum. During the Second World War the museum was closed, the collection was relocated and housed in castles in Lower Austria . Some of the clocks were lost, including 230 form clocks from the collection of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach; 40 remained. Kaftan ran the museum until his death in 1961. Today the watch museum is a branch of the Wien Museum .

exhibition

Room no. 6 with table, travel, pocket and chest of drawers clocks
Former clock tower of St. Stephen's Cathedral (1699)

Around 700 clocks documenting the development of clock technology since the 15th century are exhibited on three floors in 19 rooms. One of the oldest exhibits is a tower clock from the first half of the 15th century. Another important exhibit is the tower clock of St. Stephen's Cathedral , which Joachim Oberkircher built in 1699; The astrological and astronomical floor clock also comes from St. Stephen's Cathedral . A special work from the 18th century is an astronomical art clock by David Ruetschmann . Pocket watches on display in the museum come from French and Swiss workshops, including those made by Ferdinand Berthoud , Abraham Louis Breguet and Bordier. A grandfather clock from the possession of the actress and confidante of Emperor Franz Joseph I , Katharina Schratt , is shown, which was in her villa in Bad Ischl , the imperial summer residence. A special feature is the cannon clock, in which the cannon serves as a housing and the clockwork is located in a wheel. Another 3,000 to 4,000 watches are kept in the depot.

literature

  • Rudolph Kaftan: The Clock Museum . Wagner, Innsbruck 1927, OBV .
  • Rudolf Kaftan: Illustrated guide through the Clock Museum of the City of Vienna, at the same time a short presentation of the history of the clock in the Clock Museum . German publishing house for youth and people, Vienna 1930, OBV .
  • Heinrich Lunardi: tour of the clock museum of the city of Vienna . Jugend und Volk Verlagsgesellschaft, Vienna 1973, ISBN 3-7141-6079-5 .
  • Susanne Walther, Franz Scharinger: Clock Museum Vienna 1, Schoolyard 2 . (Second, expanded edition). Self-published by the Museums of the City of Vienna, Vienna 1981, OBV .
  • Wolfgang Kos (Ed.), Wolfgang Freitag (Red.): Highlights from the Vienna Clock Museum . (Leader). Wien Museum, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-902312-22-8 .

Web links

Commons : Uhrenmuseum (Vienna)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Palais Obizzi
  2. ^ News from Upper Austria and Salzburg. (...) The watch collection of an Upper Austrian. In:  Tages-Post , No. 108/1917 (Volume III), May 7, 1917, p. 3, bottom right. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / tpt.
  3. ↑ (Probably :) H (ans) M (aurer) :  The Clock Museum of the City of Vienna. Visit to the old schoolyard No. 2. In:  Reichspost , Morgenblatt, No. 244/1918 (XXV. Year), May 31, 1918, p. 6 f. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / rpt.
  4. ↑ community newspaper . (...) The Ebner-Eschenbach watch collection. In:  Reichspost , Morgenblatt, No. 428/1917 (XXIV. Volume), September 16, 1917, p. 12 center. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / rpt.
  5. ↑ Viktor Stöger:  Daily report. (...) The Clock Museum of the City of Vienna. In:  Reichspost , Morgenblatt, No. 284/1917 (XXIV. Volume), June 22, 1917, p. 8, center left. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / rpt.
  6. ↑ Little Chronicle. (...) The Vienna Clock Museum. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 19305/1918, May 25, 1918, p. 7, bottom right. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  7. ^ Eva Maria Orosz: Marie Ebner-Eschenbach - The poet as a watch collector "My watches make it difficult for me to die" - in highlights from the Vienna Watch Museum In: Wiener Zeitung of January 21, 2000
  8. ^ Gerhard Roth: Journey into the fourth dimension In: Die Presse from February 28, 2009
  9. ↑ Restitution report 2003 by the Vienna Museum (PDF file; 915 kB)
  10. ↑ Restitution report 2002 (PDF file; 874 kB)
  11. ↑ Around the clock museum . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna November 22, 1945, p. 3 , column 4 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  12. ↑ City Hall correspondence Vienna of June 6, 1947 with photo by Rudolf Kaftan

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 39.1 ″  N , 16 ° 22 ′ 9.4 ″  E