Middle Rhine Museum

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The Middle Rhine Museum in Koblenz has been in the Forum Confluentes since 2013

The Middle Rhine Museum is an art museum in Koblenz . It has been located in the Forum Confluentes on the central square since 2013 . From 1965 to 2013 it was located in the old department store on Florinsmarkt in the old town . The story goes back to 1835. It had to move 10 times. The city of Koblenz is responsible for this.

The museum was founded around the same time as the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne and the Städel in Frankfurt . "Even if the Middle Rhine Museum looks more modest compared with these two collections of world fame, it is still one of the oldest civic museums in Germany ... and still supported today by the commitment of the citizens."

history

Beginning as a municipal art collection

Painting by Januarius Zick Merkur in the sculptor's workshop (1777)
Painting by Christian Gottlob Hammer View of Koblenz and Ehrenbreitstein (1829)
The Middle Rhine Museum was located in the old department store on Florinsmarkt from 1965–2013

The beginnings of the museum go back to the collection of paintings of the Neuendorf pastor and educator Joseph Gregor Lang with over 200 works. The art-loving pastor Lang had amassed an important collection of paintings in the spatially modest parish hall in Neuendorf (today a district of Koblenz), which he bequeathed to his hometown Koblenz in 1834, shortly before his death. The tight situation changed when the city of Koblenz took over the collection after the collector's death. Between 1835 and 1845, the collection was presented in the free school for boys in the house at Kastorstrasse 94 next to the Bürgerhospital as the Städtisches Langsche painting collection . The Koblenz painter Johann Baptist Bachta was initially entrusted with the management, followed by the painters Daniel Dienz and Gottlieb Theophil Gassen.

From 1847 to 1863 the collection was shown in rooms rented by the city in the building of the casino company in today's Casinostraße. From 1863 to 1868 it was housed in the former town hall on Plan, then in the shopkeeper at Kornpfortstrasse 17, where it had to give way to the town library in 1870 after only two years . From 1870 to 1872 the paintings hung in the municipal department store on Florinsmarkt, where the Middle Rhine Museum was located until 2013. In 1872 the collection had to move to the front hall of the city ​​theater on Clemensplatz. Around 1900 the painting collection moved to the Old Castle . In the meantime the museum association founded in 1883 had also become active. He had brought together collections of archeology related to Koblenz and the surrounding area, arts and crafts, cultural history and city views in the municipal department store , from which the Lang collection had been banned 20 years earlier.

The beginning of the First World War ended the memorable coexistence of the two neighboring museums on the banks of the Moselle, both of which had to give way to air raid protection and food supplies. In the confusion after the First World War and as a result of the flood threat of 1920, both collections were distributed in the corridors of various city buildings. In this critical situation, District President Gröning suggested using the premises of the Electoral Palace that were not used by the French occupation troops as a temporary home for the two collections. The city, the preservation of monuments of the Prussian Rhine Province and also the occupying power supported this project. In this way both collections were merged. The Koblenz Castle was the first and so far the only appropriate place of accommodation for the museum, the holdings of which grew considerably here.

Changes in the stock

Civil foundations, including one from Miss Thekla von Düsseldorf in 1917, increased the base. Shortly before the start of the Second World War , the castle museum reached its greatest extent. The museum employee Alfred Kohlhoff inventoried the inventory of the museum and documented the demise at the same time. The National Socialist city ​​administration neglected the museum in favor of large-scale propaganda exhibitions in Koblenz Castle. In addition, parts of the collections on the ground floor of the palace fell victim to Allied air raids in 1944 . However, many works of art could previously be relocated to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress and the Kemperhof bunker .

In the post-war turmoil in 1945 and 1946, Kohlhoff was only able to add numerous additions such as “Taken by the Allies” or “Theft from the Ehrenbreitstein depot” to his inventory. The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum also evacuated its holdings to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress during the Second World War. But while the Cologne museum sent its own employees to the fortress to guard the collections, the Koblenz residents waived such a precautionary measure, which resulted in the loss of a large number of works of art. The remaining holdings of the collections were provisionally made accessible to the public again from 1949 to 1965 under the new name Mittelrheinisches Museum in the rooms of the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress. In 1965 the two collections then moved into the building on Florinsmarkt, which had been rebuilt and converted for museum purposes.

Relocation to the Forum Confluentes

On the central square in Koblenz, the project partners ECE and STRABAG realized a unique symbiosis of retail and culture. The inner-city shopping center Forum Mittelrhein opened on September 26, 2012. In addition, with the Forum Confluentes, a cultural space was created which, since June 20, 2013, has offered a new home to the Middle Rhine Museum, the city ​​library and an information center for the Upper Middle Rhine Valley World Heritage . Both buildings are connected by the new central square, a square with a 6000 m² open space with a green island and a water feature.

With the culture building, the city is solving some problems with the museum and city library. The facilities, distributed over several locations, were neither barrier-free nor did they meet the fire protection regulations required today. For a first fire protection renovation of the Middle Rhine Museum alone, over 2 million euros would have been raised. Furthermore, the new building solved the existing space and presentation problems of the Middle Rhine Museum, because only a fraction of the valuable holdings of the municipal collection could be exhibited. The modern cultural building has a usable area of ​​12,000 m² on a total of five floors. 3200 m² of this is attributable to the new museum and administration (basement, ground floor and 1st floor). In the first year after the move, 24,000 people visited the museum, which is three times as much as the old location.

Duration

The original head of the Kaiser Wilhelm I monument , exhibited in the Middle Rhine Museum

Lang's painting collection comprised works from the area of ​​late medieval sacred art through the Dutch masters of the 17th to painting from the 18th and early 19th centuries. In addition, the museum owns paintings by regional artists, for example by Januarius Zick , and a focus on Rhine romanticism with depictions of Middle Rhine landscape motifs and city views. The Lang collection is “a testimony to the passion for collecting of a cleric, enlightener, native Rhinelander and committed educator in the age of secularization and the early history of European museums.”

The Middle Rhine Museum now houses more than 2000 years of art and cultural history of the Rhineland . In total there are around 20,000 treasures and works of art from prehistory to the present, including over 1,100 paintings , around 8,000 graphics and hand drawings as well as over 300 sculptures and numerous objects from the fields of arts and crafts , furniture , textiles , militaria , archaeological finds, building fragments, photographs , Pottery and coins in the museum. In the field of contemporary art, large complexes of works by KO Götz and Heijo Hangen are on display.

management

Scientific director of the Mittelhein Museum employed by the city of Koblenz:

Othmar Metzger Jan. 1, 1958 to March 31, 1963
Maria Velte July 1, 1964 to September 30, 1973
Kurt Eitelbach April 1, 1974 to 1988
Klaus Weschenfelder 1990 to December 31, 2001
Mario Kramp April 1, 2002 to May 31, 2010
Dieter Marcos June 2010 to February 2012 provisional
Markus Bertsch March 1, 2012 to September 30, 2014
Matthias from the bank since Oct. 15, 2014

literature

  • Matthias von der Bank, Ines Heisig (ed.): Middle Rhine Museum Koblenz. Selection catalog, Petersberg 2017.
  • Energieversorgung Mittelrhein GmbH (ed.): History of the city of Koblenz . Overall editing: Ingrid Bátori in conjunction with Dieter Kerber and Hans Josef Schmidt
    • Vol. 1: From the beginning to the end of the electoral era . Theiss, Stuttgart 1992. ISBN 3-8062-0876-X
    • Vol. 2: From the French city to the present . Theiss, Stuttgart 1993. ISBN 3-8062-1036-5
  • Mario Kramp (Ed.) / Mittelrhein-Museum Koblenz: A picture gallery for Koblenz - 170 years of the Mittelrhein-Museum, 250th birthday of the founder Joseph Gregor Lang, catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Mittelrhein-Museum Koblenz from October 8, 2005 to January 2006. Görres Druckerei & Verlag GmbH, Koblenz 2005, ISBN 3-928377-29-9 .
  • Klaus Weschenfelder (ed.) / Mittelrhein-Museum Koblenz, 1993: The sculptures from the 12th to the 18th century, Koblenz 1993 (Gebr. Breuer GmbH), ISBN 3-928377-06-X

Web links

Commons : Middle Rhine Museum in Koblenz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. https://www.mittelrhein-museum.de/beispiel-seite/geschichte/
  2. Dr. Eberhard Schulte-Wissermann (Lord Mayor of the City of Koblenz) in: Mario Kramp 2005, p. 5
  3. Extensive biographical information on Joseph Gregor Lang can be found in: Verena Spies von Büllesheim and Mario Kramp: Eine Gemäldegalerie für Koblenz, in Mario Kramp 2005, p. 11 ff.
  4. Pastor Joseph Gregor Lang, Testament 1833: "These paintings in eternal times, Langische painting collection in a suitable place to be procured free of charge by the city administration for teaching prospective artists and for the enjoyment of the public." In Mario Kramp 2005, back of the catalog
  5. to: Mario Kramp: From the vegetable garden to the Florinsmarkt - 170 years of the Middle Rhine Museum in: Mario Kramp 2005, pp. 7–9.
  6. ^ City of Koblenz: Kulturbau attracts 500,000 visitors in the first year in: Rhein-Zeitung , June 20, 2014
  7. Verena Spies von Büllesheim / Mario Kramp: A picture gallery for Koblenz, in Mario Kramp 2005, p. 11

Coordinates: 50 ° 21 ′ 31.7 "  N , 7 ° 35 ′ 46.4"  E