Carl-Schweizer-Museum
The Carl-Schweizer-Museum in Murrhardt , a town in the Rems-Murr in Baden-Württemberg , is a private museum, for several generations, from the taxidermy was built family Swiss and cared for. It sees itself as a privately run multi-theme museum in which nature and culture, animal and human life worlds are combined in an interdisciplinary manner to form a comprehensive, regionally-related overall view.
history
The museum is the result of the passion for collecting of four generations of the Swiss taxidermy family. It has been based in Murrhardt for over 100 years and has created a private museum that is important for the entire region of the Swabian-Franconian Forest Mountains and the Rems-Murr district in northeast Stuttgart .
Four generations
- Carl Schweizer learned the profession of zoological taxidermist in 1896. He was trained in Schwäbisch Hall, Öhringen and Görlitz. He came to Murrhardt in 1917 as a taxidermist and furrier. A brother, Theo Schweizer, founded a preparation studio in Berlin.
- Carl's son, Egon Schweizer, took over the workshop in Murrhardt after a long stay in Norway. The Carl-Schweizer-Museum was founded in 1931 as a house for local nature and culture.
- Rolf Schweizer continued the business and the museum after the Second World War. This was housed in the current building and constantly expanded and rebuilt.
- With Christian Schweizer, the fourth generation has been working in the preparation business and as museum director since 1990.
Under the direction of the founder's great-grandson, the museum was further expanded and expanded to include a large cultural and urban history department.
Mission statement and teamwork
All family members work on a voluntary basis in the Carl-Schweizer-Museum. The house is run by the Schweizer family. Other volunteer cleaners and assistants provide selective support. The family and the volunteer helpers are based on the idea that a museum is not a commercial enterprise, but a house whose collections serve the public, the common good and education. This model is the basis for a successful collaboration in the museum.
Example of generational teamwork
A report from spring 2011 shows the teamwork:
“The imposing eagle's nest with several specimens of the birds of prey high up under the ceiling is a large cross-generational work of the Schweizer taxidermy family. The artificial rocks consist of a wooden structure that is modeled and painted with fabric and plaster. The birds used for this came mostly from Norway, as the family had good connections to the Scandinavian kingdom. Christian Schweizer's great-grandfather, museum founder Carl Schweizer, began designing the group of animals in Schwäbisch Hall at the end of the 19th century. The oldest specimen is an eagle with black grouse from 1896 and an eagle with fox, which was also made before 1900. When Carl Schweizer came to Murrhardt in 1917, he brought both preparations with him, which were later installed in the first museum, which opened in 1931.
Theo Schweizer, brother of the museum's founder, who was a taxidermist for hunting trophies for the nobility and industrial families in Berlin, created another specimen of the eagle. Egon Schweizer, son of Carl Schweizer, designed the adult and young birds in the eagle's nest. After completing his training, he worked in Norway from 1925 to 1928 as the head of a preparation workshop in Oslo and received eagle preparations from his colleague Karl Knobloch. From 1952 to 1956 the eagle's nest was built into today's Carl-Schweizer-Museum. In 1970, museum director Dr. Rolf Schweizer the eagle with marmot.
The renovation of the group of animals and the installation of new artificial rocks turned out to be very costly in 2011, as it also involved a major technical renovation. It lasted several weeks and included carpentry, joinery, painting and electrician work. "
building
The museum building blends in seamlessly with its surroundings thanks to the choice of materials; doors and windows have natural stone surrounds. Over the years the building was naturally overgrown and the planting of the outdoor facilities expanded into the surrounding area.
Building the collections
Animal and bird life
- The zoological department of the museum is the core of the collections. In 1899, taxidermist Carl Schweizer began collecting animals and birds. Even then, rare specimens were acquired from bird sanctuaries and wildlife parks.
- The protection of animals and species is a guideline for our work. None of the exhibits were hunted for the museum - mostly they are “environmental victims” or exits from zoological gardens and game parks that have been collected over the course of 100 years. Most of the preparations are very old,
Cultural history of the region and the city
- The Prehistory and Early History department gives an insight into the settlement history of southern Germany, from the Heidelberg prehistoric people to the Celts. The Homo steinheimensis was found in Steinheim an der Murr: The skull of a woman who probably lived 250,000 to 300,000 years ago and was presumably killed.
- The Roman history department of Murrhardt and the region at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Limes transports visitors back to ancient times: Romulus and Remus an der Murr. A number of special finds were found in Murrhardt, which tell of the establishment of the settlement around 1850 years ago. See also Murrhardt Castle , the story of a cohort fort , the primal cell of urban settlement.
The museum is also a point of contact for the Limes in Baden-Württemberg. The UNESCO World Heritage Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes is introduced to so many school classes and visitor groups who can virtually immerse themselves in Roman history here.
- The monastery history department documents one of the oldest monastery foundations in northern Württemberg around 750 AD. The spectrum ranges from the Carolingian foundation to the times of the Staufer with the beautiful, original architectural parts of the Walterich Chapel to the foundations of the Counts of Habsburg-Löwenstein and the dukes of Württemberg.
- The city history collection begins with the city elevation in 1288 and is closely linked to the history of the monastery . Exhibits from the time after the Reformation, the Thirty Years War and the great city fire in 1765 can be found in the foyer and stairwell.
An expansion of the exhibition area with certificates up to 1949 is to be implemented from 2015 to 2020.
Web links
- Internet presence of the Carl-Schweizer-Museum , accessed on May 31, 2018.
- A reference to the museum on the city's website , accessed May 31, 2018.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chapter “Mission Statement and Concept” on the museum website , accessed on May 31, 2018.
- ↑ BKZ-online from April 2011 , accessed on May 31, 2018.
Coordinates: 48 ° 58 ′ 41.1 ″ N , 9 ° 34 ′ 43.9 ″ E