Museum Society Tübingen

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The Museumsgesellschaft Tübingen e. V. was created in 1818/20 from the union of several reading societies in the city of Tübingen , which had developed since 1774 and were supported by academic, student and civic circles. In 1821 the company left with financial support from members and shareholders from the court architect Gottlob Georg Barth (1777-1848) from Stuttgarterect a representative building at Lustnauer Tor (corner of Grabenstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse), the "Museum". With its continuously expanding library it served the education and edification, especially of the academically educated circles of the city, but also socializing in the form of conversation, balls or games (billiards) as well as the organization of lectures and concerts. An inn was also part of it. The Society's first statutes appeared in print in 1838 (“Laws of the Museum in Tübingen”).

On July 27, 1829, the university music director Friedrich Silcher founded the "Academic Song Board" here.

The Silchersaal and the Uhlandsaal were used for the events. In 1886 the “museum” was expanded and a new, larger ballroom (Schillersaal) was built, which could accommodate around 800 people. It was rebuilt in 1914 and greatly expanded. Since 1933 it has been leased to an operator who runs a cinema here. Between 1993 and 1997 the building was extensively renovated.

To this day, the Museum Society, in close cooperation with the cultural department of the University of Tübingen and the City of Tübingen, has organized series of concerts with well-known artists and ensembles, theater evenings, author readings and recitations in its own rooms and in the university's ballroom. Society and buildings are part of the city's cultural heritage.

The museum library, which comprises around 25,000 volumes, is open to the general public. Around 9,000 volumes are part of the historical inventory, half of which consists of fiction literature. Historical-political and biographical literature is also well represented. The library offers a representative cross-section of such literature, which in many cases was not acquired by strictly academic institutions and which served to entertain and further educate the educated middle class.

The archive of the museum society for the period from 1813 to 1969 is located in the University Archive of Tübingen

Most recently, the Tübingen computer scientist Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Rosenstiel (1954–2020).

Literature / sources

  • Peter Michael Ehrle : Tübingen reading societies in the early 19th century . In: Book trade history, 1982 edition (No. 4), pp. B 147 – B 157 (supplement to the Börsenblatt for the German book trade / Frankfurt edition).
  • Stefan Knödler: "Fetched today and given back tomorrow". An unknown book of desiderata from the library of the Tübingen Museum Society from 1824 and the discussion about how to deal with Walter Scott's novels in it. With unknown autographs by Wilhelm Hauff and Eduard Mörike . In: Archive for the history of books, vol. 70 (2015), pp. 247–261.
  • Ingrid Scheurmann: The museum society building in Tübingen. A project sponsored by the German Foundation for Monument Protection , German Foundation for Monument Protection, Bonn 2002.
  • Alf-Rüdiger Schmuker / Sebastian Kolb: The Museum Society Tübingen - a center of cultural conviviality , Museum Society Tübingen 1992.

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