Aquazoo - Löbbecke Museum
| Aquazoo - Löbbecke Museum | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum Düsseldorf | |
| place |
Kaiserswerther Strasse 380 40474 Düsseldorf |
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| surface | 6800 m² | |
| opening | 1904: foundation, 1947: aquarium attached, in new building since 1987 2017: reopening |
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| Animal species | 560 species | |
| Individuals | approx. 5000 animals | |
| Visitor numbers | > 520,000 (September 13, 2018) | |
| organization | ||
| management | Jochen Reiter (Director) | |
| Sponsorship | City of Düsseldorf | |
| Funding organizations | Society of Zoofreunde eV | |
| Member of | WAZA , EAZA , VdZ | |
.jpg) Exterior view of the Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum (after 2017) |
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| www.duesseldorf.de/aquazoo | ||
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Coordinates: 51 ° 15 ′ 23 " N , 6 ° 44 ′ 59" E
The Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum is a unit of zoo and natural history museum under the sponsorship of the city of Düsseldorf . It was opened in 1987 in the Nordpark under the name Löbbecke-Museum + Aquazoo . On an area of 6800 square meters, around 560 animal species are exhibited in aquariums, terrariums and a tropical hall in 25 themed rooms (as of July 2018). The exhibition is completed by 1,400 natural history exhibits , models and interactive stations. With almost 500,000 visitors a year, the Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum has been by far the most popular cultural institution in the city of Düsseldorf for many years.
history
The Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum has two different roots. The museum part goes back to the private museum of the pharmacist Theodor Löbbecke . Shortly after his death in 1901, his collection became the property of the city, but only on condition that the city of Düsseldorf put the exhibits on display in a museum. In 1904 it was opened under the name Löbbecke Museum in Düsseldorf's old town. The tradition of keeping zoo animals goes back to the Düsseldorf Zoo , which was founded in 1876 by the animal protection association "Fauna" . In 1930 the Löbbecke Museum was integrated into the zoo, which explains the unity of both facilities. During the Second World War, in November 1944, the Derendorfer freight yard near the zoo was heavily bombed, with numerous bombs falling in the zoo itself and largely destroying it. The museum building also suffered severe damage. Most of the exhibits, however, had been evacuated beforehand. After the Second World War, the facility, consisting of the zoo and museum, was housed in a bunker just across from the old zoo as a temporary seat. After long - also legal - disputes, the facility moved to its current location in the Nordpark in 1987. The conception of the new building was based on the plans of Manfred Zahn, who headed the institute for over 27 years until the end of March 1994 before handing over his work to his successor Wolfgang Gettmann. The mayor of Düsseldorf, Joachim Erwin , who died in 2008, called for the construction of an aquarium with international standards in his legacy. The institute was to be expanded in the coming years. The financing planning had already been completed, but the project was postponed indefinitely in the wake of the economic crisis and the associated decline in city revenues. On November 4, 2013, the house was temporarily closed because extensive renovation was necessary. The reopening was originally planned for May 2015, but has been postponed to September 22, 2017. The renovation costs rose by over 40 percent to around 21 million euros. During the renovation phase, Wolfgang Gettmann was retired and Sandra Honigs was appointed acting head. In 2016, Jochen Reiter was the new head of the facility. Even if an expansion of the facility would still be necessary in view of the high number of visitors and extensive collections, an expansion is currently not in sight.
exhibition
The exhibition of the Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum is designed as a tour that consists of six parts (Understanding Diversity, In the Sea, In Freshwater, On Land, Preserving Diversity and Understanding Diversity). A thematic interlinking of living animals and natural history objects such as fossils , skeletons and models, as well as interactive stations, is presented. The presentation of living and prepared animals side by side makes interesting cross-references possible: the visitor can directly relate the behavior of the animals to morphological details that can only be made visible on preparations . For example, there is a prepared piranha skull with clearly visible teeth in the immediate vicinity of a tank with living piranhas. Morphology , behavior and the recreated living space can be experienced in one place. In the current exhibition concept, the visitor follows the evolution of life from its origins in the sea, through the settlement of fresh water and the land move to the conquest of arid areas and (for some animal groups) the return from a terrestrial to an aquatic way of life. This narrative thread is supplemented by a separate mineralogical exhibition and an exhibition area that focuses on the relationship between sea and man.
In the course of the redesign of the exhibition, a children's level was created, in which the mud skippers Fred and Theodor Löbbecke accompany children through the exhibition as comic characters.
collection
The Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum houses a collection of around 900,000 natural objects from the fields of biology , geology / mineralogy and paleontology . The most significant parts of the collection include the malacological collection with over 360,000 items (including in particular the collection of the museum's founder Theodor Löbbecke), the insect and spider collection with around 530,000 items, a bird egg collection from Löbbecke's possession with 8,500 items, and an osteological collection which is based on the estate of the animal sculptor Josef Pallenberg and is constantly being expanded. Corals, dermoplastics, wet specimens and natural casts of vertebrates and also plants are kept in a herbarium in smaller parts of the collection. This extensive, natural history collection is supplemented by objects from the property of marine researchers and submarine filmmakers Hans Hass and Kurt Schaefer , with historical diving equipment and objects from underwater photography and videoography. The collection also includes an archive with documents from the history of the museum and a library with over 5000 monographs.
Nature education
The Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum is the most visited extracurricular learning location in Düsseldorf and the surrounding area. In 2017, the year it reopened after the renovation, more than 17,000 people, including 10,000 school pupils, took advantage of the environmental education offered by the institute or when visiting school. In 2018, the first year after it reopened, there were around 35,000 people.
Species protection
Like other zoological institutions, the institute participates in various conservation breeding and reintroduction programs. For example, the stud book for Gundis is kept . Two other programs are also worth mentioning: A project funded by the European Union for the reintroduction of allis shad in the Rhine, which is coordinated in the Aquazoo. In addition, the zoo maintains an amphibian protection and breeding station sponsored by the city of Düsseldorf , in which various animals threatened with extinction have been cared for and in some cases have already been successfully reproduced. The employees publish their experiences on keeping and breeding rare amphibians in their own monographs.
Awards
On February 9, 2015, the Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum received the UN award for its breeding and protection station for amphibians for the first time as a project of the UN Decade of Biodiversity . In recognition of the work done, the project received this award a second time on March 15, 2017 and a third time on February 15, 2019.
In 2011 the Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum received two prizes from the Historical Diving Society for the preservation and making available to the public of the valuable legacies of Hans Hass and Kurt Schaefer : the Nick Icorn Diving Heritage Award for people and organizations who stand out through "preservation through education" for the common good and the International Nautiek Award .
Web links
- Website of the Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum
- Website of the Freundeskreis Löbbecke-Museum & Aquazoo - Society of Zoofreunde eV
- Floor plans and further information (private site)
Individual evidence
- ↑ "I've been waiting for the opening for four years"
- ↑ Website of the state capital Düsseldorf: Aquazoo is happy about more than 500,000 visitors in the first year
- ^ Website of the state capital Düsseldorf: Political legacy of Joachim Erwin
- ↑ Aquazoo opens on September 22nd Press release of the state capital Düsseldorf from January 19th, 2017, accessed on September 23rd, 2017.
- ↑ Museum guide of the Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum
- ↑ Museum guide of the Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum
- ↑ a b "Nick Icorn Diving Heritage Award" for Aquazoo - Löbbecke Museum. Press release of February 7, 2011 (accessed: December 12, 2011). ( PDF , 53.7 KiB ) at: www.duesseldorf.de
- ↑ Honigs, Sandra; Messing, Marc; Pelzer, Beate. "Poison dart frogs of the genus Excidobates ." Natur und Tier - Verlag GmbH, Münster, 2018.
- ↑ Honigs, Sandra; Messing, Marc; Pelzer, Beate. "Toad tree frogs - the genus Trachycephalus ." Natur und Tier - Verlag GmbH, Münster, 2014.
- ↑ Kunz, Crito; Honeys, sandra; Eisenberg, Tobias. "Moss frogs - the genus Theloderma ." Natur und Tier - Verlag GmbH, Münster, 2010.
- ^ Announcement from February 13th, 2015 of the Freundeskreis Löbbecke-Museum & Aquazoo
- ↑ Entry on the website of the UN Decade of Biodiversity ( Memento of the original from February 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ State capital Düsseldorf: Amphibious project of the Aquazoo is awarded - State capital Düsseldorf. Retrieved August 25, 2017 .
- ↑ Düsseldorf Aquazoo receives International Nautiek Award , press release of December 1, 2011, accessed on December 12, 2011, PDF 54.6 kB
