Knauf Museum Iphofen

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New building in 2016
Old building (former Rentamt) 2006

The Knauf Museum Iphofen is a private museum in the Franconian town of Iphofen and an institution of Knauf Gips KG . The relief collection from the great cultural epochs of antiquity is unique in Europe. The collection put together by the plasterers Alfons N. Knauf and Karl Knauf was opened in 1983 as a permanent exhibition in a stately baroque building on the town's market, where it has been housed ever since.

In 250 exhibits it presents the highlights of ancient art from Mesopotamia through Egypt, Greece, Rome and ancient America to India. The true-to-original plaster replicas of the masterpieces were cast in the great museums of the world and in situ. The Knauf Museum thus enables a fascinating overview of world art in all its diversity on around 900 square meters. In addition, it has been holding regular special exhibitions with great success since 1987, deepening the themes of the permanent exhibition and also presenting independent content.

The Knauf Museum sees itself as a cultural source of inspiration for the region, but with its exhibition concept it has long been arousing broad, supraregional interest. Markus Mergenthaler has been the director of the Knauf Museum since 2000.

history

The Iphöfer factory owner Alfons Knauf occupied himself all his life with the architectural and art-historical significance of the natural material gypsum. At the suggestion of his friend, the Egyptian archaeologist Abu Bakr, he was enthusiastic about the idea of ​​a museum that would enable a comparative overview of the great ancient cultures of mankind. The decision to put this vision into concrete terms was made by the brothers Alfons and Karl Knauf during a trip to Egypt. They had in mind to combine the most important representations of the respective epochs of each cultural area under one roof using true-to-original plaster casts. In the 1970s they began to have the highlights of large museums molded, prominent examples being the Sesostris III border stele. from the Egyptian Museum Berlin , the Hammurabi's legal stele from the Louvre in Paris or the Rosette stone from the British Museum , London. These were supplemented by replicas of temple walls and steles, which could only be copied at their original location, such as the reliefs of the Khmer temple complex Angkor Wat . This scientifically supported build-up of the replicas should take about ten years. To do this, the museum employees traveled to many parts of the world and used a self-developed casting process. The then director of the State Egyptian Museum in Munich, Dietrich Wildung, played a key role in designing and setting up the museum.

A Baroque palace on the market in Iphofen, which has housed various departments of Gebr. Knauf Westdeutsche Gipswerke since 1967, offered itself as a building. On June 30, 1983, the Knauf Museum Iphofen was opened with a core collection of 150 exhibits. The initiator, Alfons N. Knauf, could no longer witness this event because he had died a year earlier. A little later Kurt Schmitt took over the management of the museum. During the years of the collection, he had made a name for himself as a replicator and expert on impressions.

In 1987 Schmitt started the successful series of special exhibitions that has continued to this day. In 2000 he handed over management to the current museum director, Markus Mergenthaler. Under his aegis, work on the extension of the Knauf Museum began in 2008. The new wing was opened in 2010 and offers an additional 400 square meters of exhibition space that is used for temporary exhibitions.

building

Historical Rent Office

The former prince-bishop's rent office is located on the market in the Franconian wine town of Iphofen. The previous building, the "old Schenkstatt", was destroyed by Swedish troops in 1632 during the Thirty Years' War. Only more than 50 years later was its ruin to be replaced by a new building. In 1688 the city council laid the foundation stone for Iphofen's first baroque building. The stately sandstone building with a hipped roof was completed in 1693 and still has many stylistic elements of the late Renaissance. The baroque design highlight is the portal moved from the central axis. In the lower third it is framed by two grimaces, an element that is taken up in the apex. In the blasted gable above, the imposing coat of arms of the Würzburg prince-bishop Johann Gottfried von Guttenberg can be seen in swelling baroque form.

The building, which was completed in 1693, was initially used as an inn "Zum harnischten Mann". The city soon no longer wanted to bear the high maintenance costs of the huge building and began a troubled time of ownership change in 1723 with the exchange of the complex for a prince-bishop's office in the suburbs. The new owner, Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn (1719–1724), used the building as a court yard and cellar. In 1803, secularization ended this use. The complex passed into the possession of the Elector of Bavaria until 1805. In 1805/1806 there was a brief interlude under the Prussian crown. Other owners followed: France, Austria, France again, and finally Bavaria again on February 28, 1810. The building was used as a judicial office during this time and as a rent office until 1880. From 1857 the forestry office was also housed in it, later a forestry department, which was installed in the building until 1967. On August 31, 1967, the Knauf company acquired the main building to accommodate employee offices. From 1973 these were relocated and the complex was vacant, ready for renovation and conversion into a museum meeting place for many cultures.

Extension

Due to its floor plan and historical construction, the baroque building was hardly able to meet the high requirements of modern conservation conditions for the original exhibits of the temporary exhibitions. When the opportunity arose to acquire the adjoining building in 2008, the Knauf family took it. In August 2008, work began on the modern extension building according to the plans of the architects' office Böhm, Iphofen. The construction task required a sensitive adaptation of the new minimalist architecture to the old rent office and its integration into the historical market ensemble. The independence of the new building should be preserved. At the same time, it had to meet the requirements for modern technical and ecological equipment in a museum. The solution of the extension building, which opened on March 20, 2010, was completely convincing and was awarded the Bavarian Tourism Architecture Prize “artouro” in 2011. The striking, straight new building is based on the proportions of the historic neighboring building and, with the material of its cladding, takes up its sandstone facade without subordinating itself. Its cubic shape pays homage to antiquity and thus refers to most of the exhibits in the relief collection. The entrance was defined as the main entrance to the museum ensemble.

A glass joint separates the two-storey facade optically from the old building and is also the hinge between the two buildings. It marks the common, handicapped accessible access zone with stairs and elevator and creates a connection between the two components via openings.

Four exhibition rooms offer a total of 400 square meters for temporary exhibitions. The core of the new building is formed by the windowless halls on the first and second floors, which are embedded in the museum like a treasure chest. They offer optimal conditions for the multimedia staging of valuable exhibits.

Permanent exhibition

The permanent exhibition offers on 900 square meters an overview of the art of ancient cultures from four continents and five millennia. The approximately 210 masterful plaster casts are presented in 20 rooms of the old rent office. Many replicas of originals that are still in their original location are staged in such a way that their surroundings are created as an illusion in the museum and become a piece of tangible reality.

The outstanding pieces of the Egypt department include the magnificent palette of King Narmer from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the fishing grave relief from Saqqara , the border stele of Sesostris III. , Berlin, Egyptian Museum, or from the British Museum, London, the rosette stone , which contributed to the deciphering of the hieroglyphs. The Mesopotamia rooms have highlights such as the replica of the Hammurabi's legal stele from the Louvre in Paris or the 15.3 meter long relief band from the tribute-bringing procession of Xerxes, which was molded on site in the ancient Persian city of Persepolis . Greek antiquity is splendidly represented with highlights such as parts of the Parthenon frieze, frieze plates of the mausoleum in Halicarnassus (London, British Museum) and the pond relief of Archeaolus of Priene (London, British Museum). Other outstanding pieces in the collection are the Prometheus sarcophagus, a work of Roman antiquity, monumental reliefs from Cambodia's huge temple city of Angkor Vat, the grave slab from the former Mayan metropolis of Palenque, plaster copies of the Moai, colossal stone statues of Easter Island, and the Irish high cross from Clonmacnois. A second Knauf copy of the famous inscription cross stands in the ruins of the Clonmacnoise monastery instead of the original, an example of the cultural significance of the copies in the Knauf Museum. Some of his casts have long been of scientific value, such as the replica of the glyph staircase in Copán. The original has now been so badly attacked by the weather that the old characters can hardly be recognized.

In addition, museums in Germany and abroad borrow objects from Knauf's holdings every year to enrich their exhibitions.

Since 2001 there have been detailed descriptions of the individual objects via audio guide in German and English. A special feature is the digital anniversary tour for the smartphone by the museum employee Ludwig Weiskopf.

Special exhibitions

Regular special exhibitions take up the themes of the permanent exhibition and enrich them with original loans. In addition, they deal with unusual topics such as seduction chocolate, furniture in miniature format or flower arrangements made of gold and precious stones. The high-quality presentation appeals to all the senses, integrates multimedia, stages exhibits with an experience character and offers surprising insights into art and culture. The concept is effective for the public. More than 60,000 visitors came to the special exhibitions “The Gold of Meroe” and “Along the Silk Road” in 1993, almost 20,000 people were enthusiastic about the “Myth of Bullenheimer Berg” and almost 25,000 wanted to relive the “witchcraft in Franconia”. In 2018 the museum celebrated its 35th anniversary with the special exhibition "Heinrich Schliemann - Troja". The exhibition, which was created in collaboration with the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Berlin, together with a replica of a Trojan horse that could be admired on the market square in Iphofen, again attracted over 25,000 visitors.

selection

  • Along the silk road. Art and Culture of Buddhism (April 1, 1993 - August 1, 1993)
  • The Gold of Meroe (July 18, 1993 - October 31, 1993)
  • Chocolate - the triumphant march of sweet seduction (March 30, 2004 - July 25, 2004)
  • Big Miracles - Small Furniture (March 13, 2005 - October 30, 2005)
  • Fertility? Eroticism? Sex? in Ancient America (July 2, 2006 - November 12, 2006)
  • For the anniversary - a thousand blossoms made of precious stones (March 2, 2008 - May 12, 2008)
  • Myth Bullenheimer Berg (July 1, 2012 - November 4, 2012)
  • Witch madness in Franconia (July 27, 2014 - November 2, 2014)
  • The Barbarian Treasure (June 28, 2015 - November 8, 2015)
  • Everyday luxury protection. Jewelry in Ancient Egypt (March 13, 2016 - November 13, 2016)
  • Siebold Netsuke meet Japanese beauties (July 3, 2016 - November 6, 2016)
  • Good luck for! Mining and White Gold (March 26, 2016 - June 18, 2017)
  • Early MAIN story. Archeology on the River (July 23, 2017 - November 5, 2017)
  • Highlights from the Schwarzenberg Archive (March 18, 2018 - May 27, 2018)
  • Heinrich Schliemann - Troy (June 15, 2018 - November 4, 2018)
  • Elefant - gray giants in nature and culture (March 30, 2019 - November 10, 2019)

literature

General and inventory catalogs

  • Kurt Schmitt: Knauf Museum - relief collection of the great cultural epochs. (= Small art guide. No. 1613). 3rd, modified edition. Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 1994, DNB 944 280 994 .
  • Rudolf Maria Bergmann: Museum guide Franconia. L & H Verlag, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 978-3-928119-29-0 , pp. 212-213.
  • Knauf Museum Iphofen (ed.): Knauf Museum - collection of reliefs from the great cultural epochs. 3rd supplemented edition. Röll, Dettelbach 2005, ISBN 3-89754-240-4 .
  • Markus Mergenthaler: The Knauf Museum Iphofen - From tavern to museum. In: Nele Schröder, Lorenz Winkler-Horaček (eds.): … From yesterday to tomorrow… - On the history of the Berlin plaster cast collection (s). Leidorf, Rahden 2012, ISBN 978-3-89646-068-4 , pp. 303-306.
  • State office for non-state museums in Bavaria (ed.): Museums in Bavaria - A guide through the Bavarian museum landscape. 6th, completely revised edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin / Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-422-07382-1 , pp. 211–212.

Exhibition catalogs

  • Julia Jänicke, Markus Mergenthaler: Egypt - An exciting journey through the land of the pharaohs. (= Children and youth catalog of the Knauf Museum Iphofen). Röll, Dettelbach 2006, ISBN 978-3-89754-261-7 .
  • Markus Mergenthaler (Ed.): Agate - play of colors in precious stones. Röll, Dettelbach 2015, ISBN 978-3-89754-465-9 .

Web links

Commons : Knauf Museum (Iphofen)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1. Markus Mergenthaler, Das Knauf_Museum Iphofen, in:… from yesterday to tomorrow…. On the history of the Berlin plaster cast collection (s), editor Nele Schröder with Lorenz Winkler-Horaček, p. 225.
  2. ↑ 2. Markus Mergenthaler, Vom Wirtshaus zum Museum, Jahrbuch des Landkreis Kitzingen, 2010, p. 346.
  3. ↑ 2. Markus Mergenthaler, Vom Wirtshaus zum Museum, Jahrbuch des Landkreis Kitzingen, 2010, p. 347.
  4. ↑ Knauf Museum Relief Collection of the Great Cultural Epochs, inventory catalog, p. 8.
  5. ↑ Knauf Museum Relief Collection of the Great Cultural Epochs, inventory catalog, pp. 8, 9.
  6. ^ Architecture special, The new Knauf Museum in Iphofen. 6) boehm & kuhn Architekten - Prokjekte, http://www.boehm-kuhn-architekten.de/projekt/knaufmuseum , accessed July 24, 2017.
  7. ↑ Knauf Museum Relief Collection of the Great Cultural Epochs, Wildung, p. 11.
  8. ↑ Michaela Schneider, The great world under one roof, “Franconia. Magazine for Country and People ”, November 2012.
  9. ↑ Sabine Kuhlenkampff, Das Gold von Meroe, in: Jubiläumsmagazin, p. 16.
  10. ^ Head of the Knauf Museum Iphofen

Coordinates: 49 ° 42 ′ 13.8 "  N , 10 ° 15 ′ 37.7"  E