Grassi Museum

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Logo of the museums in Grassi

As Grassi Museum building complex on today Johannisplatz in Leipzig called, which the Leipzig Museum of Ethnography , the Museum of Applied Arts (formerly of arts and crafts Museum of Decorative Arts and Museum) and the Museum of Musical Instruments of the University of Leipzig home. Other forms of designation are Grassi Museum Leipzig, Museums im Grassi, Neues Grassi Museum (as a contrast to the first building with this name; today the city library see below).

history

The name of the Grassi Museum is derived from Franz Dominic Grassi , a Leipzig merchant of Italian origin. After his death in 1880 he bequeathed the city a fortune of more than two million marks , from which numerous building projects were financed and supported.

Old Grassi Museum

In the years from 1892 to 1895, the first Grassi Museum was built in Leipzig on Königsplatz (today Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz ), today's Old Grassi Museum . Originally it housed the Museum of Regional Geography and the Museum of Applied Arts , today the Leipzig City Library is located in this building.

In addition to the Grassi Museum, the Gewandhaus and the Mende Fountain were built from the property left by Grassi.

The Grassi Museum was included in the Blue Book published in 2001. The Blue Book is a list of nationally important cultural institutions in East Germany and currently includes 23 so-called cultural lighthouses .

New museum building

New Grassi Museum - entrance
First courtyard
Second courtyard
Pillar hall

The driving force behind a replacement for the old Grassi Museum, which had become too small, was Richard Graul (museum director between 1896 and 1929). At Graul's suggestion, an architectural competition was launched for a new museum building on Johannisplatz, the construction costs of which could still be covered from the Grassi inheritance. The design by Leipzig architects Zweck & Voigt emerged victorious from the competition. The urban planning preliminary draft, in which the Grassi Museum was to form the starting point for an expansion of the city towards the east, came from city planner Hubert Ritter . The new complex, which is divided around several courtyards, was built between 1925 and 1929 under Ritter's direction on the site of the former “old” Johannis Hospital (1278–1928). The building, with stylistic echoes of New Objectivity and Art Deco, is one of the few new German museum buildings from the Weimar Republic. The building complex has a total of 27,000 square meters of floor space. Its wings spread between two arterial roads (Dresdner Strasse and Prager Strasse). Originally they were to the 1963's Busted Johanniskirche aligned.

For the official inauguration of the new Grassi Museum in 1929, it housed the Museum of Applied Arts, the Museum of Ethnology, the Museum of Geography and the Museum of Musical Instruments.

In 1943 the New Grassi Museum was badly hit during an air raid, tens of thousands of objects from the collections were burned, reconstruction began in 1947, and the first exhibitions were reopened in 1954. In 1981 there was a breakdown in the heating system, which resulted in the exhibition being suspended for four years. Finally, the Grassi Museum was completely restored between 2001 and 2005. A decision was made in favor of a more cost-effective artificial light museum and removed the former windows from the facade, which meant a serious interference with the listed building. The museum building was reopened at the end of 2005. On December 1, 2007, after seven years of restoration, the Museum of Applied Arts was ceremoniously reopened.

In 2011 the Josef Albers windows, which had been destroyed in the war, were restored in the main staircase by the Peters glass painting workshop in Paderborn .

Grassi Fair

Richard Graul founded a museum's own sales fair in 1920, which went down in history as the Grassimesse . It should stand up to the commercial mass-produced goods that were offered at large sample fairs and convince through quality standards alone.

With the introduction of a strict jury principle, Graul succeeded in establishing the Grassimesse within a very short time as a forum for the arts and crafts elite recognized throughout Europe , and gradually including artistically oriented industrial production. Participation in the Grassimesse was equivalent to a seal of quality.

Since it was founded in 1997, the Grassimesse takes place once a year on the last weekend in October. Around 100 exhibitors from Germany and abroad present and sell current work at the three-day fair.

Exhibitions

  • 2017: Comprehensible architecture - the importance of door handles in architecture . Catalog.
  • 2018: Delft Porcelain - European faiences .
  • 2019: BAUHAUS_SACHSEN .

Movies

literature

Web links

Commons : Grassimuseum  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Hand it on! in FAZ of February 7, 2017, page 11

Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 14.6 "  N , 12 ° 23 ′ 17.8"  E