Palitzsch Museum

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Palitzsch Museum in Dresden-Prohlis
Plaque above the first door
Johann George Palitzsch

The Palitzsch Museum (formerly the Heimat- und Palitzsch-Museum Prohlis ) is one of the museums of the city of Dresden . It is dedicated to the 7,000-year history of the settlement of today's Prohlis district and the Prohlis farmer and natural scientist Johann George Palitzsch , who was the first to see Halley's Comet , which was then eagerly awaited at the time, in 1758 and thus became known throughout Europe.

Location

The museum is located in a former farm for which the name “Palitzschhof” has become natural. After the demolition of the barn in 1982, only the two residential buildings of the former three-sided courtyard Altprohlis 3 remain. One, today's Gamigstrasse 24, houses the museum and an art school, the other (house number 26) is to become [out of date] a “community center” in the next few years . The listed Palitzschhof is the only remaining homestead in the historic Prohlis village center. Since the 1970s, the Palitzschhof has been surrounded by several 17-storey high-rise buildings. It is located between the streets Am Anger in the north, Prohliser Straße in the east and Gamigstraße in the south. The Geberbach flows directly along the Palitzschhof . Palitzsch Museum is the only Dresden museum in the Prohlis district .

Exhibitions

The museum's exhibition area extends over an approximately 300 square meter roof space.

The permanent exhibition of the Palitzsch Museum focuses on various topics. Among other things, evidence of the local history of Prohlis is shown, including finds of prehistoric settlement made in the surrounding earlier brickworks . The presentation of the life and work of Johann Georg Palitzsch is given special value. The challenge here lies in the fact that Palitzsch himself almost no longer has any personal items. In order to be able to classify Palitzsch's achievements and to meet the increased demand for the abolition of astronomy lessons in Saxony, much space is given to astronomy , its history and especially comet research. There is also a digital planetarium right under the roof .

Since May 2006, special exhibitions lasting several months have also been presented in the museum. There were already exhibitions on the history of Dresden's businesses in the GDR era and on the state capital's churches that were lost due to the destruction caused by the air raids on Dresden in 1945. In 2008/2009, the exhibition "Comet Fever" ran on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the discovery of Halley's Comet on December 25, 1758 by Palitzsch. It bridged the gap between historical and modern research into comets .

history

Map of the battle of August 27, 1813
Monument to Palitzsch at the museum
Prohliser contrasts

In the 18th century the farmer Johann Georg Palitzsch lived in Prohlis, which at that time was an agricultural village on the southern edge of the Elbe valley . Self-taught, he learned particularly physics, astronomy and botany and was recognized as a scientist in these fields. His greatest achievement is the discovery of the comet predicted by the English astronomer Edmond Halley in 1705 . In addition to further astronomical research, he was also involved in the introduction of the potato and the lightning rod in the Dresden area. A monument in Prohlis has been a reminder of Palitzsch since 1877 . His farm, which he had taken over from his father, was mainly demolished in the 19th century because it was badly damaged in the battle of 1813 . The barn stood until 1976. Its threatened demolition and the destruction of the old village prompted Siegfried Koge, who would later become the museum's director for many years, to take care of the old heritage. A stone from the old barn with the inscription "Aug. 27, 1813" and the associated cannonballs stuck in the wall became the foundation of the collection.

Today's museum building was not owned by Palitzsch, but was only built in 1851 by the farmer Johann Gotthelf Hünichen, which is reminiscent of an inscription above the house entrance. Around 1930 the courtyard was redesigned. The barn was leased to another farmer and eight apartments were rented in each of the two other buildings (two-story, with a simple saddle roof ). Since the demolition of all other buildings in the village center from 1975, which was intended to create space for the Prohlis prefabricated building area, the Hünichen-Hof has been Altprohlis' only surviving farm . At that time it was only spared because it served the purpose of setting up the construction site of this major construction site. After the construction work in the 1980s, a laundry was housed there.

Initially there were plans to set up the cultural center of the prefabricated building area in Prohlis Castle . However, for reasons unknown, this building burned down on December 17, 1980 and was demolished in 1985. Only then was the idea reactivated to accommodate the cultural center in the only preserved Prohlis farm. On June 6, 1988, the Prohlis Heimatstube and Palitzsch memorial finally opened there. After the fall of the Wall , today's Office for Culture and Monument Protection of the State Capital Dresden took over responsibility for the museum.

A comprehensive renovation of the museum building took place between July 2003 and the end of 2005, which was funded with more than one million euros from the federal-state program The Social City . During the measures, the museum was housed in the former Prohlis village school and then moved into its new domicile in the now expanded attic in the Palitzschhof.

The permanent exhibition with the chapters Prohlis, Palitzsch and Astronomy was opened on May 8, 2014.

The museum is also a venue. In a multi-purpose room on the upper floor, there are regular offers for school classes, especially during the Stone Age , and evening lectures, which correspond to the wide range of topics of the museum; mostly in cooperation with the numerous associations and institutions in Prohlis .

literature

Web links

Commons : Palitzsch Museum  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes and individual references

  1. ↑ Branch of the JugendKunstschule Dresden
  2. ↑ Course set for the community center, in: Prohliser Zeitung 1/2007, p. 1, text copy of the Dresdner district newspaper ( Memento from February 17, 2017 in the web archive archive.today ).
  3. ^ Palitzschhof in Dresden-Prohlis opened after reconstruction. In: dresden.de. State capital Dresden, January 19, 2005, accessed on February 17, 2017 .
  4. ↑ de-de.facebook.com/OstsaechsischeSparkasseDresden , accessed May 11, 2014

Coordinates: 51 ° 0 '  N , 13 ° 48'  E