German Chair Making Museum
The German Chair Making Museum in Rabenau / Saxony is a technology museum in Rabenau in Saxony . The museum was founded in 1922 and has been located in the former stable building of the Vorwerk of Rabenau Castle since 1978 .
The building Lindenstrasse 2
The building of the German Chair Building Museum belonged to the outworks of the former Rabenau Castle, which was probably built in the twelfth century. The castle was conquered in 1399 and destroyed in 1402 and has since fallen into disrepair. From 1569 the Vorwerk became a free estate . In 1866 the chair dealer Ferdinand Reuter bought the estate. He raised the cross vault of the stable building and built a manufacture for the manufacture of chairs. After the establishment of the Saxon Timber Industry Society in 1869, new factory buildings were erected on the site of the castle ruins. The factory was sold and converted into a residential building.
Rabenau as a chair building city
Around 1600 the craft of chair making developed in Rabenau and the surrounding area . The court geographer Adam Friedrich Zürner reported in 1720 about Rabenau that almost all of the residents were chair makers . Rabenau chairs were particularly popular at the time of classicism and at the beginning of the Biedermeier period in the mid-19th century. In 1882 Rabenau was connected to the Weißeritztalbahn , which was of great importance for the local chair making industry. In 1883 the independent chair makers from Rabenau formed a guild. Production peaked around 1900 with 150 workshops and 13 factories. At this time, the industrial production of chairs began in Rabenau, especially with the mass production of bentwood furniture in the Saxon wood industry company founded in 1869.
The bankruptcy of the company in 1913 and the challenges of the First and Second World Wars caused sales of the chairs to decline. During the Second World War, the Rabenau chair-making companies also had to produce "war essentials " such as ammunition boxes , field chairs and the like. Among other things, this was a reason to expropriate some large chair-making companies after 1945 .
Rabenau was able to assert itself as a chair building location. Since upholstered furniture production in the German Reich was mainly located in the Franconian region, the GDR decided to transfer selected large chair-making companies into public ownership and convert them into upholstered furniture manufacturers. The craft businesses formed a cooperative , they were involved in large interior design projects and also manufactured special stalls for theaters and cinemas. The upholstered furniture was in demand for export during the GDR era. At times 1000 workers were employed in the upholstered furniture industry.
From 1947, apprenticeship corners were set up in the companies to train apprentices. Theoretical training took place in the Rabenau vocational school, which was located in the lower rooms of the Rabenau school . In 1951, a training workshop with a modern machine room was opened in the former Becker & Zenker chair factory, thereby significantly improving practical training. In the following years, the training capacities were further expanded, and a school building was built in 1954/55. At times, foreigners were also trained in the school as part of Comecon development aid.
After the fall of the Wall, the Rabenau chair makers could do little to counter the pressure from Italy, and later from the Far East. The on-site chair production became less and less. Since the 2000s, almost only upholstered furniture has been manufactured in Rabenau. By far the largest company is Polstermöbel Oelsa GmbH, founded in 1992 with around 250 employees, which emerged from the VEB Polstermöbelkombinat Oelsa / Rabenau .
The creation of the museum
As early as 1886 an appeal was issued to collect “antiquities and products of local industry”, but it did not show any results. In 1922, the then Rabenau section of the Mountain Association for Saxon Switzerland , headed by Max Anders, called for the collection of household items, pictures and other regionally interesting products. This resulted in the home collection, which was shown for the first time from March 4 to 6, 1927 in an exhibition in the “Amtshof” inn. In 1931 the exhibition was able to move into seven rooms on the top floor of the newly built Rabenau school as a “home collection”. In 1939 the exhibition was redesigned.
After the closure in 1945, the home collection was reopened on July 6, 1947 under the name "Home collection of the city of Rabenau". Since school and museum operations did not get along well, the home collection had to move out of the school in 1978.
From 1978 onwards, parts of the collection were housed in the vault of the house at Lindenstrasse 2. The museum was named "Heimat- und Stuhlbauuseum". Since 1992 the museum has been enlarged again and again. A major renovation and redesign of the exhibition took place in 1993 and 1994. In 1999 the “chair construction” area was significantly expanded and separated from the home collection. Since then, the entire ground floor has been reserved for chair construction. The commitment came from the museum advisory board and the German Chair Building Museum Rabenau / Sa, founded in 2007. eV with the support of the city of Rabenau and the Free State of Saxony.
The museum today
The chair construction area is located on the ground floor with a beautiful cross vault. The home collection is on the first floor. The second floor is used as an archive. The focus of the collection is on chairs from different stylistic epochs of the Rabenau production, tools, devices, wood carving work and braided patterns. In the collection, special attention is paid to the valuable originals from the Baroque , Biedermeier, Wilhelminian and Art Nouveau periods, as well as some Rabenau Thonet chairs .
In the home collection there are exhibits on the town's history, typical household items and artistic depictions of Rabenau and the romantic Rabenauer Grund . Several special exhibitions take place every year.
In 2005 the exhibition was expanded with the construction of the workshop and the machine room of the Rabenau honorary citizen and chair builder Kurt Aehlig. This shows the Rabenau chair making trade at the beginning of the 20th century - just as Aehlig took over from his father in 1927. Aehlig had kept his machines powered by transmissions at the technical level of the early 20th century, while other chair manufacturers gradually (sometimes with a delay) adapted themselves to the technical level achieved in each case. Aehlig worked on these machines until he retired in 1995.
Other machines of interest for chair production have been on view in the museum basement since 2020.
The museum has been offering an app with a virtual tour of the museum since 2019. Videos of demonstrations of the exhibited machines are also included.
gallery
Living room chairs from Rabenau
Children's barber chair from Rabenau
Combined woodworking machine
Double bed from the local history part of the museum
Sculpture at the German Chair Making Museum
See also
literature
- Thomas Nabert : Furniture for everyone . The history of the Saxon furniture industry. Ed .: German Chair Building Museum Rabenau / Sa. eV Pro Leipzig, Leipzig 2014, ISBN 978-3-945027-02-8 .
- Otto Mörtzsch : For the anniversary of the Rabenau wood industry. In: Our home, 1st year 1929 No. 2, pp. 5-8 and No. 3, pp. 10-12 and No. 4, pp. 13-14.
Web links
- Website of the German Chair Making Museum
- History of furniture construction in Rabenau from 1200 until today on the side of Polstermöbel Oelsa GmbH
Individual evidence
- ↑ Andreas Novak: Stuhlbauerstadt pays tribute to its handicraft tradition . In: Saxon newspaper . April 3, 1999 ( online for a fee [accessed on May 13, 2021]).
- ↑ Annett Heyse: No retirement home for Rabenauer Museum boss . In: Saxon newspaper . August 1, 2015 ( online [accessed May 13, 2021]).
- ↑ Experience the tradition of chair making . In: Saxon newspaper . September 7, 2013 ( online for a fee [accessed on May 13, 2021]).
Coordinates: 50 ° 57 ′ 44.9 " N , 13 ° 38 ′ 26.7" E