Austrian Society and Economic Museum

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The economic and coffee museum

The Austrian Society and Economic Museum , with its own presentation of the Wirtschaftsmuseum , is a museum in the 5th  Viennese district of Margareten . The museum is located together with the coffee museum at Vogelsanggasse 36 and is organized as a non-profit, non-partisan association with the Republic of Austria and the City of Vienna represented on its board of trustees .

Origin and development

Otto Neurath organized self-help against the housing shortage with the Austrian Association for Settlements and Allotments . An exhibition led to the establishment of Otto Neurath's private museum for settlement and urban development . In consideration of the Red Vienna, with the establishment in 1924 with the City of Vienna, the Chamber of Labor and the social insurance, the establishment of the Society and Economic Museum Vienna (GWM).

The offices of the GWM were located in the municipal district office 3. , Karl-Borromäus-Platz 3, in 1926/1927, and from 1927–1934 in a building belonging to the Central Savings Bank of the Municipality of Vienna , 15. , Ullmannstraße 44. From December 1927 the museum had a permanent one Exhibition in the Volkshalle of the Vienna City Hall . Other exhibition locations in Vienna were 1. from 1928 , Parkring 12, from 1930 in the municipal housing 12 , Fuchsenfeldhof , and from 1933 in the Zeitschau on Tuchlaubenplatz (1., Tuchlauben 8, at the junction of the fire site ), a panel in a showcase of the Wiener Städtische Versicherung directly on the sidewalk, which reached around 2000 recipients daily.

Longstanding and influential employees were primarily Neurath's future wife Marie Reidemeister and the graphic artist Gerd Arntz. He was entrusted with some commissioned work from 1926, worked for a few months on probation at the GWM in 1928 and was finally employed from 1929.

After the February fights in 1934 , the museum was dissolved under Austrofascism and then continued as the Austrian Institute for Image Statistics. After Austria was annexed to Hitler's Germany, the name changed to the Institute for Exhibition Technology and Image Statistics.

After 1945 the City of Vienna re-established the museum together with the original founders and renamed it the Austrian Society and Economic Museum in 1948 .

The building of the economic museum was built in 1888 and as a building complex forms the back wing of the elementary school at the address Stolberggasse 53, built in 1887.

The GWM as a people's and workers' education institute

The GWM saw itself as a people's institute for social enlightenment and employed people's educators like Emil Reich , Eduard Leisching and Walter Schiff on the board of trustees . It was characterized above all by the fact that its enlightening self-image broke with the conventional understanding of the museum. While the museum was previously a meeting point for oddities, rarities and ostentatious treasures, the GWM exhibited educational media that visitors could use to obtain visual information, similar to those in natural science museums.

In this respect, no cultural or ideological, but sociological and economic knowledge was conveyed, which was scientifically generated.

The GWM as a picture-pedagogical institution

All media used for this purpose were based on the requirement to forego written language as much as possible and to make the most of the communication services of images and other visual methods. Picture boards, models, films, illustrations and moulages were used (see isotypes ). In this respect, the museum did not define the addressees as the educated bourgeoisie as was customary in the 19th century, but rather factory workers, farm workers and pre-literate children.

Because image education did not yet exist, Neurath and his team developed it gradually in the museum. The individual test images were exhibited in the museum, measured by their mediation performance and continuously developed in a practice-oriented manner.

In addition, the GWM was shaped by the traditional socialist idea of ​​the broadest possible international impact. It was therefore necessary to develop a form of reproduction that enabled the use of the communication method and that of the museum itself in other places. The GWM therefore produced picture boards centrally, archived them in Vienna and sent them to specially founded institutions at home and abroad. In 1931 the Mundaneum , named after Paul Otlet , was created , the central office of which was the GWM and which in 1932 founded branches in The Hague, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, London and New York, and in 1931 the Isostat Institute in Moscow. This distribution idea was supported by numerous educational image publications, which more and more supplemented the exhibition work.

After the necessary escape in 1934 and the relocation of work to The Hague, the central and distribution function of the GWM was replaced by the Mundaneum Den Haag , the further development of visual education was carried out by the International Foundation for Visual Education The Hague and later by the Isotype Institute in Oxford.

The museum today

Today's Austrian Society and Economic Museum is ideally linked to the original founding years and has set itself the goal of presenting social and economic facts and developments in a simple and understandable manner. Furthermore, lectures on current economic topics are offered regularly in the economic museum, most of which can be attended free of charge.

Activities in the museum
  • Lectures: Regular lectures on current economic and social topics are offered. Most of these presentations are free of charge.
  • Economics trail: economic data such as gross domestic product , inflation , money and currency and other key words globalization and the European Union are presented on blackboards.
  • From grandmother to grandson: 100 years of life from the time of the monarchy through the war years to the present day in Vienna are shown here.
  • Collectors' gallery: The museum's visitor café makes its premises available to private collectors twice a year so that they can present their own private collection to an interested public.
  • Computer and media room: 23 computers with interactive programs are available for visitors, tailored to the subject areas of the business course.
Activities outside the museum
  • Traveling exhibition: For schools, the Austrian Society and Economic Museum offers traveling exhibitions with mostly economic content.

management

  • 1924–1934 Otto Neurath
  • 1945–1972 Franz Rauscher . In 1945, students of Otto Neurath founded the Austrian Institute for Social and Economic Statistics , which was headed by Franz Rauscher.
  • 1972–2000 Josef Docekal . Under his leadership, the museum was opened to the public in 1988.
  • Since 2000 Hans Hartweger

Coffee museum

The coffee museum was founded in 2003 by Edmund Mayr . It is located at Vogelsanggasse 38, on the ground floor of the neighboring building of the Austrian Museum of Social and Economic Affairs. Access is via the main museum. Most of the objects from Edmund Mayr's private collection have been brought together over 50 years and cover every aspect of coffee .

The museum has a special exhibition with numerous antique coffee machines and illuminates the background to the topics of coffee and coffee beans . In addition, special events and presentations are regularly held in a section of the museum.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Volker Thurm: Vienna and the Vienna Circle. Vienna 2003, pp. 81, 161
  2. ↑ Vossoughian, Nader: Otto Neurath. The language of the Global Polis. Rotterdam 2008, p. 79
  3. ↑ Gerd Arntz : Otto Neurath, I and the picture statistics. In: Stadler, Friedrich (ed.): Workers' education in the interwar period. Otto Neurath - Gerd Arntz. Vienna / Munich 1982, p. 31
  4. ↑ Inventory building Wirtschaftsmuseum Vogelsanggasse 36 in the digital cultural property register of the City of Vienna, accessed on April 5, 2014, with reference to
    • Nina Nemetschke, Georg J. Kugler: Lexicon of Wr. Arts and Culture. Verlag Carl Ueberreuter, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-8000-3345-3 , p. 429.
    • Federal Monuments Office: data from the Federal Monuments Office , p. 1
  5. ^ Vienna cultural asset architecture: elementary school of the city of Vienna; Back section: Economic Museum - building information
  6. ^ Wilhelm Filla : Science for All - A Contradiction? Innsbruck / Vienna / Munich 2001, p. 107
  7. ^ Otto Neurath (1925): Society and Economic Museum in Vienna. In: ders .: Collected pictorial educational writings. Edited by Haller, Rudolf / Kinross, Robin. Vienna 1991, p. 1f
  8. ↑ Angelique Groß: The picture pedagogy Otto Neuraths. Methodical principles of the presentation of knowledge. Publications of the Vienna Circle Institute. Jumper. Heidelberg 2015, p. 65ff
  9. ^ Otto Neurath (1931): Pictorial pedagogy in the Society and Economic Museum in Vienna. In: ders .: Collected pictorial educational writings. Edited by Haller, Rudolf / Kinross, Robin. Vienna 1991, p. 198
  10. ↑ Vossoughian, Nader: Otto Neurath. The language of the Global Polis. Rotterdam 2008, p. 49
  11. ↑ Angelique Groß: The picture pedagogy Otto Neuraths. Methodical principles of the presentation of knowledge. Publications of the Vienna Circle Institute. Jumper. Heidelberg 2015, p. 65ff
  12. ↑ Angelique Groß: The picture pedagogy Otto Neuraths. Methodical principles of the presentation of knowledge. Publications of the Vienna Circle Institute. Jumper. Heidelberg 2015, p. 65ff
  13. ↑ Vossoughian, Nader: Otto Neurath. The language of the Global Polis. Rotterdam 2008, pp. 97, 107
  14. ^ Otto Neurath (1936): International Imagery. In: ders .: Collected pictorial educational writings. Edited by Haller, Rudolf / Kinross, Robin. Vienna 1991, p. 394
  15. ↑ Angelique Groß: The picture pedagogy Otto Neuraths. Methodical principles of the presentation of knowledge. Publications of the Vienna Circle Institute. Jumper. Heidelberg 2015
  16. ^ Paul Neurath: Otto Neurath (1882-1945). Life and work. In: ders./Elisabeth Nemeth (ed.): Otto Neurath or the unity of science and society. Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 1994, p. 72f

Coordinates: 48 ° 11 ′ 2 "  N , 16 ° 21 ′ 25"  E