Overseas Museum

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Overseas Museum

The Übersee-Museum Bremen is a more than 100 years old important museum in the inner city of Bremen directly at the main station at the Bahnhofsplatz . The building has been a listed building since 1993. In an integrated exhibition on nature , culture and trade , it presents aspects of overseas habitats with permanent exhibitions on Asia , the South Seas / Oceania , America , Africa and globalization issues.

According to its own statements, the museum is one of the most visited museums in Germany.

history

Various buildings from the Northwest German Trade and Industry Exhibition in 1890

In 1875 the collections of the “Natural Science Association”, a foundation of the “ Society Museum ”, and collections of an “Anthropological Commission” founded in 1872 became the property of the City of Bremen under the name “Municipal Collections for Natural History and Ethnography” .

At the “ North-West German Trade and Industry Exhibition ” in 1890 in the Bürgerpark , these collections in the “Trade and Colonial Exhibition ” section were so successful that they continued to be exhibited until 1895 after the end of the trade and industrial exhibition. Even during this time, commercial circles and the savings bank advocated building a museum of their own. According to the program of the director Schauinsland and plans by senior building director Franzius , Beermann and building inspector wing (both building inspection) the shell was completed in 1893. On January 15, 1896, the Senators Carl Barkhausen and Hermann Gröning as well as the director Schauinsland opened the “Municipal Museum for Natural, Ethnic and Commercial Studies”.

As a result of reconstruction in the years 1908 to 1911, the building, initially only equipped with an atrium , was given an extension to the west with another atrium and the front was changed. The director and zoologist Schauinsland created a successful show museum that was supposed to combine science and popular education and undertook several large collecting trips himself.

After the seizure of power operated the Nazis in 1933 the dismissal of Schauinsland in appalling circumstances. Under his successor, Carl Friedrich Roewer , the museum was initially called the “State Museum for Natural, Ethnic and Commercial History”, and from 1935 then “German Colonial and Overseas Museum” with special exhibitions on whaling , but also on colonies and racial studies .

The air raids on Bremen during World War II hit the building hard and destroyed some of the exhibits. Reconstruction began in 1946 with a new concept, information about the Third World and the museum's educational orientation were reinforced. In 1949, visitors were able to view parts of the collections again.

In 1951 the museum was given its current name. From 1962 to 1971 Hermann Friedrich was director of the museum; he expanded the natural science display collections. From 1976 to 1978 it was closed for renovations and reorganization of the collections; the reopening according to a new conception took place in 1979. The aquarium , which has been in the basement since 1911, and the associated terrarium were damaged in the war and the outdated system was not put back into operation, and a plan for a new building in 2000 was discarded.

In 1985 the “Friends of the Übersee-Museum e. V. “a development association whose aim is to maintain and improve the attractiveness of the museum.

The 100th anniversary of the museum was celebrated in 1996 with special exhibitions.

The museum, until 1998 a subordinate department of the Senator for Education, Science, Art and Sport, was converted into a foundation under public law on January 1, 1999 . In the same year the Übermaxx was opened, a museum show magazine in the neighboring building of the CinemaxX cinema . Here, on a total of five floors, 30,000 collection items from the fields of natural history, ethnology and trade are kept and made accessible to the public at the same time.

Since October 2019, the exhibition “Searching for Traces - History of a Museum” has been devoted to the history of the origins of objects from former colonies. In this exhibition, the museum takes a critical look at its own past.

Directors

Museum today

The first atrium

The museum offers the visitor entertainment, adventure and education and, with its museum educational offers, is aimed particularly at teachers and students (including through a gamelan ensemble). In 2009, the project “Research on Your Own Cause” received the BKM Prize for Cultural Education .

Since the beginning of 2006, visitors to the museum have been able to use the xpedeo multimedia guide to navigate through the exhibitions, start individual tours or use infrared beacons to call up information on the various thematic areas of the house.

Overmaxx

Show magazine Übermaxx

The magazine has been largely accessible to visitors since 1999. Übermaxx is a word creation from Übersee-Museum and Cinemaxx. The publicly accessible show magazine called Übermaxx is located in the building of the Cinemaxx cinema opposite and can be reached via a bridge on the 3rd floor. The permanent collection takes up three floors and has an area of ​​2000 m². Here the objects are only arranged thematically in a small space in showcases, without further explanations. Further information can only be obtained via the numbering and an accessible computer system.

Natural history collection

After the renovation, the natural history department is housed in the Übermaxx. Around 10,000 objects from the collection are publicly accessible. The preparations are classified according to the current biological system .

The collections include animal, mushroom and plant exhibits. The museum's last collecting and research trip took place in the 1970s. The museum takes over collections from private individuals and smaller institutions. It also holds many first finds from the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen . For example, the first record of the yellow-necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis) in Bremen comes from the 1990s and is documented in the collection.

Exhibitions

Important exhibitions in recent years:

  • February 18, 2006: Reopening of the newly designed permanent exhibition Asia - continent of contrasts
  • November 18, 2006: Opening of the enlarged special exhibition room with 1001 Nights - Paths to Paradise , catalog: Verlag Philipp von Zabern , Mainz
  • 0October 8, 2011 to April 29, 2012: Vodou - Art and Cult from Haiti
  • October 10, 2014 to April 5, 2015: China under Mao
  • 0November 7, 2015 to April 24, 2016: The fascination of whales - people. Whale. Pacific.
  • February 25, 2017 to April 23, 2017: Flashback - highlights from the Bremen ports
  • 0November 3, 2017 to May 1, 2018: Cool Japan - trend and tradition
  • 0February 8, 2018 to April 22, 2018: Life in the Arctic Circle
  • May 17, 2018 to June 17, 2018: grass species
  • August 23, 2018 to November 25, 2018: Australian Ghostnets - Art from the Sea
  • October 27, 2018 to April 28, 2019: Antarctica
  • 0February 7, 2019 to April 21, 2019: Hong Kong Connection
  • June 28, 2019 to November 3, 2019: Naturalia Artistica
  • October 26, 2019: Searching for traces - the history of a museum

literature

Web links

Commons : Übersee-Museum Bremen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Monument database of the LfD
  2. ↑ Übersee-Museum Bremen: Search for traces - history of a museum. Retrieved July 16, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Benno Schirrmeister: The long way to return . In: The daily newspaper: taz . November 16, 2019, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 53.55 ePaper 41.43 North ( taz.de [accessed on July 16, 2020]).

Coordinates: 53 ° 5 ′ 0 ″  N , 8 ° 48 ′ 38 ″  E