Center Charlemagne

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The Center Charlemagne

The Center Charlemagne - New City Museum Aachen is the home and history museum of the city of Aachen . It was named after Charlemagne , the most famous and most important historical figure in Aachen. The museum was set up in an administrative building of the city of Aachen at Katschhof No. 1, which was built by Gerhard Graubner between 1958 and 1962 and later placed under monument protection. The Center Charlemagne opened on June 19, 2014. The old city museum was housed in the Frankenberg Castle building from 1961 to 2010 ; the exhibits were stored in a depot until they were reopened.

The Center Charlemagne is also the central starting point and contact point of the Route Charlemagne , on which the most important stops in Aachen in the fields of history, art, culture and architecture are brought together. It is significantly supported by the Aachen Museum Association , which promotes the city's museums.

museum

The museum is divided into an 800 m² area for permanent exhibitions and a 200 m² area for temporary exhibitions as well as meeting and conference rooms, rooms for museum education and a museum café, all equipped with modern technology. Both exhibition areas were set up in the triangular shape typical for Aachen, as can be found again and again in historical places in the Aachen cityscape, because the grid of the original Roman city was once shifted to the east by the Christian-Carolingian palace complex.

Permanent exhibition

The permanent exhibition provides insights into the following topics in six departments:

Temporary exhibitions (short portraits)

The temporary exhibitions, which change twice a year, on the other hand, deal with a current focus topic relating to Aachen's history. The following topics have been presented since the opening:

Period theme description
2014 Karl's art The event was conceived together with the exhibitions Lost Treasures in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury and Places of Power in Aachen City Hall and opened on June 19, 2014 by Federal President Joachim Gauck . It was under the patronage of the French President François Hollande , the Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and the German Federal President. As part of the celebrations for the Charlemagne Year 2014 on the occasion of the 1200th anniversary of Charlemagne's death, precious ivory carvings, filigree goldsmithing and valuable manuscripts were shown. The more than 30 loans were outstanding art treasures distributed among various museums across Europe, including the two book covers of the Lorsch Gospel from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Vatican Museum in Rome and the Tassilo chalice from the pen Kremsmünster . There are also manuscripts from the Aachen court school of Charlemagne, such as the Godescalc Evangelistar from the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris or the Dagulf Psalter from the Austrian National Library in Vienna.
2014/2015 Search for Augustus On the occasion of the 2000th anniversary of the death of the Roman emperor Augustus , the question of whether the founding of the cities of Aachen, Maastricht , Heerlen and Jülich go back to his initiative was examined across borders . On the basis of excavation finds (ceramics, coins, fibulae, wood finds from the reign of Emperor Augustus) as well as more recent research results and methods, the question was investigated whether the age of the cities can be fixed to the time around Augustus. The exhibition also showed how people lived in these cities back then. In addition, a facial reconstruction of Augustus was made in cooperation with the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia in Düsseldorf , which was exhibited here for the first time.

From January 15, 2015, this exhibition was then presented in Heerlen and Jülich and finally in Maastricht.

2015 Talking bones After human skeletons were found in 2013 during canal works in the courtyard, a place in the immediate vicinity of the cathedral and town hall, which can be classified between late Roman, Merovingian , Carolingian and high medieval , the exhibition aimed to provide answers to the way and the results of the various scientific studies of these finds. In addition, another main topic dealt with the burial rituals from 1600 BC. Until the present day.
2015/2016 Mokka Türc & Marihuana - smuggling at the Aachen border In cooperation with the Zollmuseum Friedrichs from Aachen and supported by loans from the German Customs Museum in Hamburg and the customs authority in Cologne as well as with support from the Rhineland Regional Association , this exhibition commemorated the smuggling events on the German-Belgian-Dutch border after the Second World War . The reasons for the initial coffee smuggling at the Aachener Kaffeefront and the later drug smuggling were presented as well as the people involved, the smuggling methods and the smuggling routes used.
2016 Königsglanz und Gloria - Coronations in Bratislava / Preßburg 1563–1835 After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, large parts of the Kingdom of Hungary had to be ceded to the Ottoman Empire , which is why Pressburg was declared the capital of the remaining territory known as Royal Hungary in 1536 and was now ruled by the Habsburgs . From this point on, the city became the seat of all important authorities and institutions and from 1543 also the seat of the Archbishop of Gran . Between 1563 and 1830 the coronations of eleven kings and eight queens from the House of Habsburg took place in St. These political events led, among other things, to an important economic and cultural upswing in the city of Pressburg.

Using over 100 valuable exhibits from this historically important period, the exhibition presented the history of this city in a comprehensible way and brought the peculiarities of the coronations closer to the viewer and compared them with the German-Roman royal coronations of the Aachen-Frankfurt tradition.

2016/2017 From the hissing Fafnir to the vehicle of the future - Aachen and the car Already at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and benefited by the Aachen Technical University founded in 1870 and the Aachen Institute for Motor Vehicles founded in 1902, the city was able to develop into an important location for the automotive industry. In 1897, the automobile manufacturer founded Cudell , 1901 produced Fritz Scheibler engine factory AG , which in 1908 with the Maschinenbauanstalt Altenessen to Mannesmann MULAG merged, the first trucks and buses under the brand name Scheibler and 1902 brought the Fafnir-Werke the first Fafnir on the market. This development stalled in 1929 due to the global economic crisis and only picked up speed again in the 1980s with the establishment of the FEV .

This exhibition showed this historical course with numerous exhibits in the form of company documents, advertising materials and photos, which has recently been continued with the development of e-cars by the Aachen-based companies StreetScooter GmbH and e.GO Mobile AG . Another focus was the presentation of the changes in the infrastructure due to increasing traffic and the possibilities of a future automotive society.

2017 The struggle for the right faith - Reformation and confessionalization between the Meuse and the Rhine On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and sponsored by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media based on a resolution of the German Bundestag, the Center Charlemagne, together with the Couven Museum and the International Newspaper Museum, dedicated itself to this topic. While the newspaper museum Das Wittenberger Fest and the Couven Museum examined the gold and silver from monasteries of the border triangle and the pious foundations of the bourgeoisie and the nobility , the Center Charlemagne shed light on the historical development and impact of the Reformation in Aachen and the surrounding area as well as the associated Aachen religious unrest from around 1530 to 1614 on the population and regional politics.
2017/2018 Beer & us - brewing, drinking, celebrating in Aachen This exhibition looked at the history of beer brewing in Aachen and the quaintest Aachen pubs and restaurants. Already at the beginning of the 20th century there were some breweries in Aachen and the surrounding area that brewed beer according to the German purity law of 1516. These included Degraa , Decker, Walfisch and Aachener Bürger Bräu as well as the Ketschenburg brewery in Stolberg in the Rhineland .
2018 We own the city! Kids, art and riot in Aachen The summer exhibition dealt with how young people have shaped the culture and life in Aachen. Photos, films, interviews, newspaper articles and things of everyday life were presented. One focus was on graffiti and street art . Aachen artists designed the foyer and partly the outdoor area individually. The project was accompanied by street art workshops throughout the city. It also included concerts, lectures and two external exhibitions.
2018/2019 Pratschjeck op Fastelovvend - Carnival in Aachen and the surrounding area In collaboration with the Crous Collection , the Aachen Carnival Association and the Aachen Carnival Committee, this exhibition shed light on the history of the Aachen Carnival from its origins in Ancient Rome to the time before the Aachen Carnival Reform in 1829 and its subsequent development, as well as during the Nazi era and after the war up to the modern hall carnival. In addition, the various Aachen carnival orders , including the order against the seriousness of animals as well as numerous medal holders, were presented.
2019 Through the eyes of an explorer - Through a Soldier's Lens In cooperation with the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum , numerous private photos of the American Bill Perlmutter were shown to the public, which he photographed and developed during his stationing as a soldier in Germany in 1954/1955. His photos, which he actually made for various US Army magazines, give a realistic and almost private overview of how Germany as a whole and, in particular, the everyday life of the people has developed almost ten years after the end of the war.
2019/2020 Everything at the beginning? The post-war period begins in Aachen 75 years after Aachen was liberated from Nazi rule, this exhibition, in collaboration with the Couven Museum and the International Newspaper Museum, sheds light on the final years and months of the war in and around Aachen as well as the subsequent reconstruction of the city, enriched by personal stories from former eyewitnesses. In addition, it gives an outlook on the new, European orientation of Aachen up to the award of the first Charlemagne Prize and the slow coming to terms with the Nazi dictatorship.

literature

  • Martina Feldhaus: Center Charlemagne: New center for Aachen's history . In: Aachener Zeitung . Edition of June 5, 2014 ( online ).
  • Sabine Mathieu: City Hall, Cathedral and Charlemagne . Meyer & Meyer, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89899-818-5 , chap. 2.6, pp. 68-77 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Center Charlemagne  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Route Charlemagne, Aachen , Homepage of Route Charlemagne. Accessed July 16, 2014.
  2. ↑ Special exhibition Charlemagne, 2014 , on the pages of the Center Charlemagne. Accessed July 16, 2014
  3. ^ Bernd Büttgens: Gauck opens Karlsausstellung , In: Aachener Zeitung . Friday Packet for June 19, 2014.
  4. ↑ Sarvenaz Ayooghi, Frank Pohle, Peter van den Brink (ed.): Charlemagne - Charlemagne. Short guide . Sandstein, Dresden 2014, ISBN 978-3-95498-116-8 .
  5. ^ Search for Augustus in the Center Charlemagne , in: Aachener Zeitung of November 12, 2014
  6. ↑ Talking bones - archaeological finds are puzzling , STAWAG press release from April 16, 2015
  7. ↑ temporary exhibition Mocha Türc & marijuana - smuggling at the border Aachen (2015/2016 ) on the sides of the Center Charlemagne
  8. ↑ Königsglanz und Gloria - Coronations in Bratislava / Preßburg 1563–1835 on the pages of the Center Charlemagne
  9. ↑ From the hissing Fafnir to the vehicle of the future - Aachen and the car on the pages of the Center Charlemagne
  10. ↑ The Struggle for the Right Faith , on the pages of the Center Charlemagne
  11. ↑ Katrin Albrecht: The exhibition "Beer and Us" in the Center Charlemagne opens , in: Aachener Zeitung of October 11, 20167
  12. ↑ Holger Richter: The Öcher Fastelovvend is ready for a museum , In: Aachener Nachrichten of November 6, 2018
  13. ↑ Kristina Toussaint: Through the eyes of a discoverer , In: Aachener Nachrichten of June 13, 2019
  14. ↑ Everything at the beginning? The post-war period begins in Aachen , on the website of the Center Charlemagne

Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 32.8 "  N , 6 ° 4 ′ 58.7"  E