Gondwana - The prehistory

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Gondwana - The prehistory
Entrance hall

Entrance hall

place Schiffweiler ( Saarland )
opening December 14, 2008
Visitors 200,222 (2009) 
surface 10,000 m²
building-costs 14 million euros
staff 30 employees
Website https://www.gondwana-das-praehistorium.de/
Gondwana - Das Praehistorium (Germany)
Gondwana - The prehistory
Gondwana - The prehistory
Location of the park

Coordinates: 49 ° 21 ′ 0 ″  N , 7 ° 7 ′ 5 ″  E

Gondwana - Das Praehistorium (proper spelling: GONDWANA) is a natural history museum with the theme of prehistoric times and evolutionary history, which was opened on December 14, 2008 on the site of the former Reden mine in Schiffweiler ( Saarland ). The museum is operated by Gondwana Praehistorium e. K., the business owner is Matthias Michael Kuhl.

exhibition

In the cinema, a period of more than eight billion years is presented from the Big Bang to the first life forms on earth. In the adjoining exhibition rooms, visitors are guided from the primeval seas to the extinction of the dinosaurs through around 4.5 billion years of geological history. Gondwana - Das Praehistorium aims to combine entertainment and education in the form of edutainment . Animation techniques and audio-visual processes allow the visitor to experience part of the earth's history “live”. Giant scorpions, ancient dragonflies and dinosaurs are some of the life forms that are brought back to "life" in the park. Reconstructed forces of nature such as floods or meteorite impacts give an impression of the living conditions of past times.

In the first expansion phase, seven prehistoric ecosystems were recreated. The eight-meter-high skeleton of an Argentinosaurus , one of the largest known dinosaurs, was recreated from fiberglass-reinforced plastic at the site in Patagonia, South America . It was shipped to Germany in individual parts, assembled on site and set up in the entrance hall of Gondwana .

In 2011, an old workshop was transformed into an 800 m² indoor playground called Gondi's Dinowelt . Children can u. a. Playfully operate on an 8 m high wooden frame dinosaur, various slides, trampolines, a ball volcano and dinosaur carts. In 2013, the construction of another themed hall resulted in new attractions in the museum. The expansion includes twelve further themed worlds in which visitors embark on a journey through the epochal highlights of human history. The journey through time through mankind ends with a robotic-animatronic dinosaur show and the visual 4D animation of the primeval basking shark Megalodon .

Public discussion

The project is politically controversial. The SPD, Greens and FDP feared wasting taxpayers' money. For infrastructure measures in the area and the project itself, the then CDU state government in Saarland provided five million euros from tourism funding. In addition, there is an annual rental income of 1.2 million euros from the use of the former mine administration building by various authorities.

A market study assumed that the park would attract around 250,000 visitors annually and would be one of the engines for structural change in the former mining region. Critics doubt whether this is realistic. According to the operator, the number of visitors (as of June 2009) is in line with expectations. Former US Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Al Gore attended the opening ceremony on December 13, 2008 with invited guests . His appearance had caused criticism in advance, because on the one hand the question of who would pay the costs for this appearance had not been clarified, and on the other hand the press should be largely excluded from Gore's speech according to original plans.

After the Saarland Audit Office of the Saarland complained in January 2010 that the project had been subsidized by a total of 44 million euros from state funds within the next 25 years, the operator announced on January 20, 2010 that the park would be closed on January 31, 2010. On January 26, 2010, the state government announced that the park would remain open for the time being. This is the result of negotiations with the investor and IndustrieKultur Saar GmbH. On March 4th, an extension of the opening times was announced. An investigation committee of the state parliament on the behavior of the state government regarding the project met on March 22, 2010. The final report largely allayed the concerns of the Court of Auditors, but also showed that the assessment of the project is primarily a political issue.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gondwana Primeval Park cracks visitor mark Reise News, January 8, 2010
  2. ↑ Imprint gondwana.de
  3. ↑ Megalodon - Gondwana - Das Praehistorium. Retrieved April 2, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Saarbrücker Zeitung: Too much money for a trip to prehistoric times? "Free Waste of Tax Money" of January 15, 2010
  5. ↑ Berliner Morgenpost: Al Gore opens "Gondwana" prehistoric park on December 13, 2008
  6. ↑ Gondwana is over?  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Saarbrücker Zeitung from January 20, 2010, accessed January 20, 2010@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.saarbruecker-zeitung.de  
  7. ↑ Göndwana inquiry committee of the state parliament starts today  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Saarbrücker Zeitung, March 22, 2010, accessed on March 31, 2010@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.saarbruecker-zeitung.de  
  8. ↑ Elss-Seringhaus, C .: The garden speech needs fertilizer. One year waiting for construction phase two of Gondwana Park . ( Memento of the original from December 5, 2008 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. Saarbrücker Zeitung of January 4, 2011, accessed on January 5, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / saarland.sz-sb.de
  9. ^ Final report on Gondwana is on the state parliament table Saarbrücker Zeitung, June 15, 2011