Maximilian Museum

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Museum building of the Maximilian Museum, exterior view
Covered Viermetzhof
The Felicitassaal

The municipal Maximilian Museum is the oldest museum in Augsburg . It was opened in 1854 and houses an extensive art historical collection as well as numerous exhibits on the history of the imperial city of Augsburg from the Middle Ages to the mediatization of Bavaria in 1805. Up to 1905 it also contained an important natural history collection. In 2007 it received the Bavarian Museum Prize .

history

The Maximilian Museum is located in Augsburg city center on Philippine-Welser-Straße ( pedestrian zone ), today's address is Fuggerplatz 1. The museum was built in a patrician house from the 15th century. The house and its rear building in Annastraße had previously been used as a Protestant orphanage (poor children's house) from 1706 to 1853 . In 1853 the city of Augsburg bought the building and built the first Augsburg museum in it, which opened on December 28, 1854. In 1856, on the occasion of a visit by the Bavarian King Maximilian II , the museum was named after him. Until the Second World War it was the only municipal museum in Augsburg.

For more than 50 years, the museum housed the collections of several associations: that of the Natural History Association Augsburg (since 1887 Scientific Association for Swabia and Neuburg (aV) ), the Historical Association for Swabia and the Technical Association . The clubs sold their tickets themselves until 1875. From 1875 onwards, the ticket allowed visitors to visit all collections. In the 19th century , the name of the museum was Maximiliansmuseum , unlike today it was written with a fugue-s .

In 1905 the ever larger and more important natural history collection, which was the predecessor of today's Augsburg Natural History Museum, was removed from the Maximiliansmuseum and opened as a separate museum in 1906. The historical and art-historical collection remained in the Maximiliansmuseum itself, until 1908 under the direction of the historical association . After renovation and extensive redesign, the museum came under city administration in 1909, led by an administrative board made up of association members, city employees and, from 1910, members of the cathedral chapter; In that year, the art history collection of the Diocese of Augsburg , founded in 1872, was incorporated into the Maximilian Museum with the preservation of property.

From 1991 a wing of the neighboring Welserhaus, also an old patrician house from the 15th century, was attached to the museum and the two buildings were connected. At the end of the millennium, extensive renovation and renovation work began, during which only parts of the museum were accessible. At the same time, most of the diocese's holdings were returned to the St. Afra diocesan museum, which was opened in 2000 . In 2006 the entire Maximilian Museum was reopened with its newly designed permanent exhibition.

Today's structure

The renovation has given the museum a historical and modern flair. A glass roof now vaults the inner courtyard of the museum, the Viermetzhof named after its patron. Here are the original statues of the magnificent Augsburg fountains by Adrian de Vries and Hubert Gerhard . To protect against pollution from exhaust gases and other environmental impacts, they were replaced by replicas in the cityscape, the originals were placed in the inner courtyard of the Maximilian Museum after the renovation in 2000.

The museum extends over three floors and is divided into permanent exhibitions, which include sculptures, goldsmithing, building models and city history collections, as well as an area for changing exhibitions. After the Adriaen-de-Vries-Schau 2000, the next important exhibition in the context of the Augsburg Peace Year 2005 was the exhibition “When Peace Was Possible”.

Model chamber

The Maximilian Museum houses the historical model chamber of Augsburg. Since the Renaissance, urban history draft and memory models of planned and demolished buildings, as well as technical models for the Augsburg water supply, have been collected in Augsburg. A separate room was set up for this in Augsburg's town hall: the model chamber. During the Second World War, this collection, unique in the world, was brought to safety from the town hall and thus saved from destruction. It is now in the Maximilian Museum.

  • The model chamber

  • The model chamber

  • The oldest models in the collection (former Augsburg towers)

Coin collection

Selected coins from the city of Augsburg, presented with sliding magnifying glasses for viewing in the museum's coin collection
12 ducats of gold from the free imperial city of Augsburg in 1740 in the Maximilian Museum. Obv .: Pyr and river gods, Rev .: Crowned imperial eagle, dedication to Emperor Karl VI. 12 ducats of gold from the free imperial city of Augsburg in 1740 in the Maximilian Museum. Obv .: Pyr and river gods, Rev .: Crowned imperial eagle, dedication to Emperor Karl VI.
12 ducats of gold from the free imperial city of Augsburg in 1740 in the Maximilian Museum. Obv .: Pyr and river gods , Rev .: Crowned Imperial Eagle , dedication to Emperor Karl VI.

The Historical Society was introduced with the opening of the Maximilian Museum in 1854 his collection of coins there and was able to in the sequence of whole donations by several collections, expand through acquisitions as well as the 1,872-added Diocesan collection. The Roman coins were given to the newly founded Roman Museum in 1966 . Today the collection includes around 1,000 medieval, 2,000 Augsburg and 2,000 coins from other cities and states, as well as around 5,000 medals, making it the most important publicly owned collection of coins from the free imperial city of Augsburg.

Visitor information

In order to get an overview of the reopened museum in the ticket office foyer, the LIQUID design agency in Augsburg has designed a virtual information terminal : The Living Book for the Maximilian Museum .

Special exhibitions (selection)

  • 2000 - "Adriaen de Vries: Augsburg's splendor - Europe's glory"
  • 2005 - "When Peace Was Possible (Pax 2005)"
  • 2006 - "Daktyliotheken - Gods and Caesars from the drawer"
  • 2008 - "Tsar Silver"
  • 2008 - "Peaceful Dragon - Textile Art from the Kingdom of Bhutan"
  • 2009 - "Интермеццо - Intermezzo"
  • 2009 - "GLOSSY OF THE WORLD - WORLD TIME"
  • 2010 - "Artificially in Welsch and German (Bavarian State Exhibition 2010)"
  • 2010 - “Flowers, swans and Chinese. 300 years of Meissen porcelain "
  • 2011 - “Small worlds. Augsburg toys in the old days "
  • 2012 - "Noble Presents"
  • 2013 - "Hausmadonnen in Augsburg" and "Ulo Florack - The Woodruff Key"
  • 2020 - “Splendid souvenir. Augsburg silver from the legacy of Kurt F. Viermetz "

Web links

Commons : Maximilianmuseum (Augsburg)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History - Foundation Evangelical Orphanage and Klauckehaus Augsburg. www.stiftung-ev-waisenhaus.de, accessed on February 17, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Michael Achtelig: Das Naturmuseum Augsburg , in: 150 Jahre Naturwissenschaftlicher Verein für Schwaben , Augsburg, 1996, p. 64
  3. ^ Fritz Hiemeyer: From the history of the natural science association for Swabia , in: 150 years of natural science association for Swabia , Augsburg, 1996, pp. 32–34
  4. ↑ Renate Pfeuffer: The Maximiliansmuseum as home for the collections of the Natural History Association in Augsburg. A look at the annual reports between 1848 and 1906 , in: Reports of the Natural Science Association for Swabia , Volume 111, Augsburg, 2007, pp. 23–44
  5. ^ A b c Anton Vetterle: The coin collection in the Maximilian Museum in Augsburg . In: NNB . tape 69 , no. 8 , August 2020, p. 301-304 .

Coordinates: 48 ° 22 '4 "  N , 10 ° 53' 48"  E