Natural History Museum Vienna

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Natural History Museum Vienna
Logo of the Natural History Museum Vienna

Natural history museum on Maria-Theresien-Platz
Natural history museum on Maria-Theresien-Platz
Data
place Vienna 1st , Burgring 7, Austria
Art
architect Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer
opening August 10, 1889
Number of visitors (annually) see Most visited sights in Vienna
operator
Natural history museum, scientific institution under public law ( federal museums )
management
Website
ISIL AT-NMW-Z

The Natural History Museum in Vienna (NHM), with around 30 million collection objects, is one of the most important natural museums in the world and is one of the largest museums in Austria .

The house, run as the Imperial and Royal Natural History Court Museum , which houses the large imperial collections of the Imperial and Royal Court Natural History Cabinets, was commissioned by Emperor Franz Joseph I from Hofärar based on the designs of Gottfried Semper and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer on Vienna's Ringstrasse, which opened in 1865 across from the imperial Hofburg built in the style of Viennese historicism and opened on August 10, 1889. The Hofärar was taken over by the State of German Austria on November 12, 1918 , and the Republic of Austria in 1919 .

history

Emperor Franz I Stephan of Lorraine , seated, and his scientific advisors;
Franz Messmer, Jakob Kohl, 1773, Natural History Museum, Vienna; see also here and here
The museum on Maria-Theresien-Platz , seen from the Kunsthistorisches Museum ; on the right the ring road, in the back the parliament (around 1900)

Around 1750, Emperor Franz I Stephan von Lothringen , the husband of the Austrian monarch Maria Theresa who co-ruled in the Habsburg hereditary lands , bought the largest collection of natural objects from the Florentine Johann Ritter von Baillou (1679–1758) at the time. The heart of the collection was formed by 30,000 objects, including rare snails , corals , shells, as well as precious gemstones and rare minerals . Even then, the collection was organized according to scientific criteria.

Over time, the collections became so extensive that the Hofburg no longer offered enough space. In the course of the demolition of the outdated Viennese city wall and the construction of the Ringstrasse , commissioned by Franz Joseph I at Christmas 1857 , the urban expansion fund commissioned with the utilization of the land also provided space for new buildings for two court museums, the natural and art historical. At that time, the natural history collections were no longer privately owned by the House of Habsburg-Lothringen , but were defined as Hofärar , state assets directly administered by the imperial court; the art history collections were owned by the family funds of the imperial family. The emperor's court therefore acted as the client for the two museum buildings.

The architect was determined from 1867 on in a competition in which Karl Hasenauer took part; the emperor had Hasenauer's plans examined by Gottfried Semper, and Hasenauer won him over. This resulted in a not always harmonious collaboration between the two architects at both museums. Construction of both court museums began in 1871, six years after the grand opening of the Ringstrasse; the Kunsthistorisches Museum was opened in 1891, two years later than the NHM.

The two museum buildings were arranged across the Ringstrasse to frame a monumental imperial forum with two new wings of the Hofburg to be connected on the other side of the street and the historic front of the Hofburg (see also Heldenplatz ), which was due to the end of the monarchy in 1918 Torso stayed. From 1881 onwards, Semper and Hasenauer built one of the two planned new wings of the Hofburg, the so-called New Castle , between the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Hofburg. And they built the new kk Hof- Burgtheater on another part of the Ringstrasse from 1874–1888 .

The NHM, since 1920 a federal museum under the supervision of the Ministry of Education , developed inconspicuously in the following decades. Republican Austria, which had become small, did not have the means to design the NHM in accordance with newer museological findings or to expand the collections through sensational acquisitions. During the reign of the National Socialists , 1938–1945, the museum received holdings from “Aryanized” Jewish property. The last director general appointed before the Nazi era in 1933, Hermann Michel , who was deposed in 1938, acted again as such in 1947–1951. After 1945, the return of illegally acquired properties to the rightful owners throughout Austria was not a major concern of politics and administration for decades. It was not until the restitution provisions adopted in response to international pressure in the 1990s that the state collections, including the NHM, were forced to systematically search for objects to be returned.

Since 1978 was the NHM the so-called racial hall where the evolution of people towards human races was presented with various showpieces and this evaluative accompanying texts. In 1993, the British anthropologist Adam Kuper criticized the showroom as a manifestation of “Nazi-like racial research”. The exhibition was closed in 1996 only after a series of articles about it in the Viennese city newspaper Falter and several parliamentary questions from the Greens to the responsible minister of science. The completely redesigned anthropological halls opened in January 2013.

The Federal Museum Act, first passed in 1998 and amended in 2002, made it possible to separate the NHM from the federal administration as a scientific institution under public law with its own legal personality on January 1, 2003 . On July 8, 2003 it was entered in the commercial register with the commercial register number 236724z, also due to the museum regulations of the Natural History Museum of December 20, 2002, which came into force on January 1, 2003.

From 2003 to 2009, Bernd Lötsch was managing director. In December 2009 Christian Köberl was introduced as his successor, who took office on June 1, 2010. The Supervisory Board currently consists of Roland Albert, Christa Bock, Christian Cap, Manfred Christ, Gerhard Ellert, Monika Gabriel, Walter Hamp, Michael Hladik and Angela Julcher.

The previous Federal Pathological-Anatomical Museum in the Narrenturm , the last museum still under the direct administration of the Ministry of Education, was incorporated into the scientific institution of the Natural History Museum Vienna in autumn 2011 on 1 January 2012 by federal law and has since been included as the Pathological-Anatomical Collection in the Narrenturm ( NHM).

Today the museum has over 500,000 visits annually and can be considered a museum of a museum in those parts where objects and furnishings are the same as when it opened in 1889 .

management

from 1876 Intendant

from 1919 chairman of the museum council

from 1924: First director

from 1994 director general

The building

Risalit with parapet and dome of the main facade

The museum building extends between Zweierlinie or Museumplatz and Burgring ; the back borders on Bellariastraße . The front in the south-east faces the symmetrical park and the opposite-hand Kunsthistorisches Museum. The building is 170 m long and 70 m wide in the middle and encloses two rectangular courtyards about 50 m long and 25 m wide and covers an area of ​​about 8720 m². It is divided into four floors, basement, mezzanine, 1st and 2nd floor. The attic of the projecting central risalit is 32 m high and is surmounted by a 33 m high octagonal dome, on the lantern of which stands a 5 m high bronze statue of the Greek sun god Helios , symbol of the all-living element in nature. This figure, like the opposite Pallas Athene on the dome of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, was created by Johannes Benk . Four tabernacles by Johann Silbernagl (1836–1915) with seated statues of Hephaestus , Gaia , Poseidon and Urania , the four elements of antiquity, surround the dome and form the corners of the square attic. Allegorical figures are executed in the 16 gable panels. The imperial dedication is affixed to the dome in golden letters: "To the kingdom of nature and its exploration, Emperor FRANZ JOSEPH I." The magnificent staircase is located under the dome. The facade decoration comes from Gottfried Semper, who cites Alexander von Humboldt to enumerate the historical development of the knowledge of nature. In detail, the sculptures on the mezzanine floor symbolize the history of the inventions, on the upper floors events that have led to an expansion of world knowledge and the statues of important naturalists on the attic symbolize personal merit, beginning in each case at the museum corner of Ringstrasse and Bellariastrasse, along Bellariastrasse from left to leading around the museum to the right. The large figure corner groups of the central risalite symbolize the continents with their types of people. On the left and right of the main entrance Europe and America with Australia are shown by Karl Kundmann , on Bellariastraße Asia and Africa by Anton Paul Wagner . The facade and the stucco decorations in the interior show the historical development of world and space. Furthermore, there are over 100 oil paintings with motifs from the world of science in the exhibition rooms.

  • The foyer

  • Natural history museum, staircase, design by Semper and Hasenauer

  • Dome of the central building

  • Allegorical representation of zoology in the dome

  • Dome figure Helios , Johannes Benk .

  • panorama

Departments

Minerals department, moon rocks

The museum is divided into the following departments, which are led by scientific directors:

  • Anthropological Department
  • Archive for the history of science
  • Botanical Department
  • Geological-Paleontological Department
  • Department of Karst and Speleology
  • Mineralogical-Petrographic Department
  • Department of Ecology
  • Prehistoric Department
  • 1. Zoological department ( vertebrates ) with molecular-systematic investigation center
  • 2. Zoological department ( insects ) with main zoological preparation
  • 3. Zoological department ( invertebrates )

Anthropological Department

The anthropology -Dauerausstellung was after the closure of the former " racial hall designed" in 1996 from scratch and opened in January, 2013. It is dedicated to the evolution of hominids and the process of human creation. In halls 14 and 15, the focus is on two topics: walking upright and brain evolution. Starting from the closest living relatives, the great apes , is multi paleoanthropological the development of modern, adapted to different habitats are human subject areas Homo sapiens to the Neolithic period shown. The development is not only shown as a (pre-) historical and biological process, but also the cultural development is highlighted as an essential component of the incarnation.

According to new findings on the evolution of man, the development is not illustrated in the form of a family tree , but as a "stem bush" made of glass, which on the one hand should make it clear that the development did not take place in a straight line, and on the other hand on "the vague character" of the "fragmentary fossil" Evidence-based reconstruction attempts "should indicate. A representative selection of fossils and soft tissue reconstructions from Homo erectus , Neanderthals and Homo sapiens will also be shown.

Duration:

Archive for the history of science

The archive is divided into five departments with a total of over a million objects:

  1. Administrative archive, collection and documentation of the history of the Natural History Museum
  2. Letters and legacy collection (legacies, partial and fragmentary legacies)
  3. Picture collection (paintings, watercolors, graphics, pencil and other drawings)
  4. Photo and glass plate negative collection (historical photos and glass plates)
  5. Real sources (printing blocks, typewriters, cameras, busts, etc.)

Botanical Department

The herbarium of the Natural History Museum is one of the most important collections in the world due to the high number of over 200,000 type specimens .

The collections originally come to a large extent from our own expedition trips, but for decades they have been from a lively exchange with international partnership institutions. The geographical focus of the collections are in Europe the areas of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy , Central Europe and the entire Mediterranean region, especially Greece and Turkey. The centers of interest in the Asian continent are the Orient, the Caucasus and the Flora Iranica area (Iranian highlands and neighboring regions). From Africa there are collections mainly from Tunisia, East and Central Africa and the Cape area. The main collection areas in South America are Brazil, Argentina and Chile. The botanical department of the Natural History Museum Vienna also keeps numerous specimens from Australia and New Zealand.

The botanical collections of the house are divided into:

There is currently no special exhibition on botany in the exhibition area of ​​the museum.

Geological-Paleontological Department

Paleontological Department

Antiquity

In room 7 of the museum, the ancient times are mainly presented. One of the highlights of this room is, for example, the replicated, artificial carbon forest. Here you can find true-to-original and -size models of animals that existed at that time (more than 300 million years ago ). These include giant dragonflies like Meganeura . Also worth mentioning is the diorama of a reef from the Silurian .

Dinosaur hall

Dinosaur hall

In the dinosaur hall there are three skeletal reconstructions of large dinosaurs : Allosaurus , Diplodocus and Iguanodon . In addition to these, other, smaller objects, such as the bone and life reconstruction of a Tyrannosaurus skull, can be viewed. In addition, a live model of a Deinonychus in original size, several skeletons of smaller dinosaurs such as Psittacosaurus or Protoceratops and skeletal parts (for example a Triceratops skull and an Ultrasaurus leg) are on display. The newly designed dinosaur hall was opened on October 5th, 2011. The exhibition was supplemented by further skeletons, life-size models and computer animations, e.g. B. the animated model of an Allosaurus illustrates its movements, which have been reconstructed lifelike. A full- size Pteranodon model floats on the ceiling . Video animations and interactive stations convey the life of the dinosaurs, but the asteroid impact that ultimately led to the abrupt end of the dinosaurs is also visualized.

Earth New Age

Room 9 of the museum mainly shows the Earth's Modern Age . This began around 65 million years ago , after the end of the Cretaceous and the extinction of dinosaurs and other reptiles . The visitor magnet of this exhibition is the skeleton of a prodeinotherium that lived around 17 million years ago and belonged to the deinotheria , distant relatives of today's elephants . In addition, several jaws of other early proboscis are on display. Many fossils of plants from the Vienna area can be seen. These give an impression of the vegetation in this area several million years ago.

Corridors on the mezzanine floor

Live reconstruction of a woolly rhinoceros in the NHMW that lived during the last ice age

The museum has many skeletal reconstructions of animals that lived during the last Ice Age. These include, for example, the mammoth , the saber-toothed cat, the giant deer and the cave bear . All of these and other creatures are exhibited in the corridors of the mezzanine floor of the Natural History Museum.

Department of Karst and Speleology

Today's scientific department for karst and caving has existed at the Natural History Museum Vienna since 1987 and historically goes back to the former department for cave protection at the Federal Monuments Office , which was placed under the responsibility of the NHM Vienna in 1979. The department is dedicated to scientific research and the protection of cave and karst areas . Caves are geological phenomena and valuable archives of natural and human history. Karst areas are special types of landscape that go back to the solubility of rocks and contain caves and underground drainage systems. In addition to the scientific importance of this type of landscape, the karst areas are of immense importance for the drinking water supply of the population. Karst cave documentation, spring tufa studies , the creation of karst distribution and karst hazard maps, etc. Ä. m. characterize the scientific field of activity of this department of the Natural History Museum Vienna. Since 2010, the department has also been responsible for imparting knowledge on this topic to the general public in the museum as part of the exhibition “Caves - Landscapes without Light” in the special showrooms adjoining the lecture hall.

Mineralogical-Petrographic Department

Holdings: around 150,000 inventoried objects, around 15% of which are on public display

Meteorite collection

The meteorite collection of the Natural History Museum is the oldest collection worldwide (1778) and the largest exhibition collection and, with over 7000 inventoried pieces of historically and scientifically significant meteorites, is one of the largest in the world. Museum director Christian Köberl is himself a renowned impact researcher . Franz Brandstätter is the curator of the meteorite collection. From February to November 2012 the Meteoritensaal (Hall V) was closed for renovation and redesign. Since the reopening on November 14, 2012, around 1100 objects have been exhibited (previously around 2200), but significantly more information on the topic in general and individual exhibits is offered. In June 2013 the NHM received three further samples of moon rock as a long-term loan .

Mineral collection

Gemstone bouquet

Another “highlight” of the museum can be seen in room IV of the mineralogical department, a bouquet of precious stones. Maria Theresa is said to have given the gemstone bouquet to her husband Franz Stephan as a present in the middle of the 18th century. The bouquet consists of over 2,100 diamonds and 761 other precious and semi-precious stones, which are combined to form 61 flowers and twelve different animal species. The leaves are originally made of green silk, which has now faded a lot.

The mineral collection (room I-IV) is internationally significant due to its richness of objects from deposits of the former territory of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the alpine area. There are also many "classic" mineral and ore - deposits represented Germany, Russia, Britain, Italy and other countries. The oldest mineral specimens in the collection can be traced back to the art and wonder chambers of the Renaissance .

Department of Ecology

The department was created in 1994 through the incorporation of the Boltzmann Institute for Environmental Sciences, founded in 1973 and taken over by the Academy of Sciences in 1978 . Based on questions mainly from the areas of energy and ecology (solar technology, hydropower), global change, urban ecology, sustainable building and national parks, the focus of the department is on field work and environmental education. The department is responsible for managing one of the branches of the Natural History Museum, the Petronell-Carnuntum National Park Institute, in which v. a. School project weeks, themed seminars and Danube excursions are organized. The building is a building biology model house - "eco-house" - which uses and illustrates all alternative methods of energy generation, from cork thermal insulation to a solar and wood pellet heating system to process water.

Prehistoric Department

Venus of Willendorf

As one of the largest archaeological collections in Europe, the Prehistoric Department comprises the following areas:

In room 11 there are Stone Age finds such as the most prominent prehistoric object, the Venus von Willendorf (age approx. 29,500 years) and other valuable witnesses of this era: the figure from Galgenberg and the Venus von Kostenki. Halls 12 and 13 present numerous finds from the Bronze Age and Iron Age through to the prehistoric epoch and the migration period .

The department also includes the second branch of the Natural History Museum, the historic Hallstatt salt mine . Due to the conservation effect of the salt, numerous finds from the time around 1550 BC were and are still there. Brought to the light of day. The department's scientific excavation and field research activities have been linked to this for over 50 years. It was not until 2010 that a sensational find, a scoop with a calf, aroused great public interest.

1. Zoological department (vertebrates) with a molecular-systematic examination center

Whale shark
Black albatross ( Phoebetria fusca ), preparation with diorama
Birds
Stock: over 800,000 specimen copies
  • Fish collection
    • 500,000 alcohol preparations
    • 1800 skeletons
    • 2000 stuffing preparations
  • Herpetological collection (amphibian and reptile collection)
    • 200,000 alcohol preparations
    • 6000 skeletons and stuffing preparations
  • Bird collection
    • 90,000 bellows
    • 10,000 stuffing preparations
    • 7000 skeletons
    • 10,000 clutches
    • 1000 nests
  • Mammal collection
    • 70,000 objects
  • Archaeological - zoological collection
    • 350 archaeological finds
    • 350 skeletons
    • 1300 skull
  • Molecular Systematics
    • 9000 tissue or blood samples

The 1st Zoological Department of the Vienna Natural History Museum is one of the largest and most important museum collections of vertebrate animals in the world.

2. Zoological department (insects) with zoolog. Main preparation

Butterfly collection

The roots of the second zoological department at the Natural History Museum Vienna - also known as entomology - go back 200 years. The collection is rich in historical type material , a large part of it from Austria and Europe . The collections of preparations , which total an estimated ten million items, are divided into:

In addition to the arthropods ( crustaceans , arachnids , millipedes ), insects are exhibited in room 24 of the museum . Large models by Hans Dappen impressively depict the yellow beetle and larva, the Hercules beetle , the stag beetle and the moonhorn beetle . In summer, a live bee colony can be observed on arrival and departure and on the screen an enlarged honeycomb can be observed. A termite construction as well as alluvial forest and Amazon alluvial landscape dioramas are intended to illustrate the specific conditions in the habitats of the fauna that live there.

3. Zoological department (invertebrates)

Mollusc shells and corals are among the oldest objects in the department, which were integrated into the general “Zoology” department at the time the Natural History Museum Vienna was founded. In the collections, however, all phyla of the animal kingdom are represented - the objects are available as dry, wet and micro-preparations. Many parts of the collection are among the most important and largest in the world, for example millipedes, pseudoscorpions, bristle worms and intestinal worms. The portfolio is divided into:

  • Evertebrata varia collection (various invertebrates)
  • Mollusks collection (mollusks)
  • Arachnoid collection (spiders)
  • Crustacea collection (crustaceans)
  • Myriapod Collection (Millipede)

In room 21, 3D microscope views can be projected and visitors can use the microscope themselves. Protozoa, sponges, coeled animals, echinoderms and worms are presented in room 22. A coral showcase shows the variety of hard corals. Mollusks (mussels, snails, cephalopods) are exhibited in the adjoining room 23. There are rumors of the giant clam or “killer clam” (Tridacna gigas) - free-standing in this room - that pearl divers caught between its shells drowned. In addition to the insects, arthropods (crustaceans, arachnids, millipedes) are exhibited in room 24.

Special exhibitions

From October 30, 2019 to June 1, 2020, the Natural History Museum Vienna is showing the exhibition " The Moon . Longing, Art and Science " in the special showrooms of the museum on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landing . You can see a historical overview of the exploration and mapping of the moon, astronomical principles of moon phases , solar and lunar eclipses , the interaction of the moon with the earth and its influence on earthly life , the moon as a geological object, as well as the history of its exploration with the help of space travel and the moon landing. In addition to interactive stations, various artistic means of expression from the late 18th to the 20th century as well as contemporary positions complement the show.

Movies

See also

literature

  • Friedrich Bachmayer, Natural History Museum Vienna (Hrsg.): The Natural History Museum in Vienna. Residenz Verlag, Salzburg / Vienna 1979, ISBN 3-7017-0231-4
  • Iris-Amelie Ginthör-Weinwurm: The sculptural facade design of the Natural History Museum in Vienna. A palace wall of evolution ( online )
  • Günther Hamann , Natural History Museum. History. Buildings (= publications from the Natural History Museum, New Series No. 13), Vienna 1976.
  • Christa Riedl-Dorn: The House of Miracles. Verlag Holzhausen, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-900518-91-2
  • Ernst Hausner: The Natural History Museum in Vienna. Edition Hausner, ISBN 978-3-901141-44-7

Web links

Commons : Natural History Museum Vienna  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Katrin Vohland on the museum's website, accessed on June 2, 2020
  2. ↑ Via the Natural History Museum Vienna, website of the museum, accessed on April 16, 2012 (PDF; 31 kB)
  3. ^ House, court and state handbook of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy , Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1906, p. 29
  4. ^ Felix Czeike : Historisches Lexikon Wien , Volume 5, Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-218-00547-7 , p. 204, keyword Semper, Gottfried
  5. ↑ Der Standard : The Difficult Legacy of Anthropology , May 25, 2010
  6. ↑ Der Standard : The Belated Return of Our Ancestors , January 29, 2013
  7. ↑ Federal Law Gazette I No. 14/2002 ( Memento of December 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 68 kB)
  8. ↑ BGBl II No. 488/2002
  9. ↑ A top researcher as museum director , in: Der Standard daily newspaper , Vienna, December 16, 2009 , accessed December 16, 2009
  10. ↑ Natural History Museum - Köberl takes office , on the ORF website , June 1, 2010, accessed on April 18, 2014.
  11. ↑ Budget Accompanying Act 2012, Federal Law Gazette I No. 112/2011
  12. ^ The collection on the NHM website , as of December 19, 2012
  13. ↑ Natural History Museum: Katrin Vohland new NHM boss. In: Wiener Zeitung . March 13, 2020, accessed March 13, 2020 .
  14. ↑ New NHM boss introduced. In: ORF.at . March 13, 2020, accessed March 13, 2020 .
  15. ^ Günter Hamann, The building and its artistic equipment
  16. ^ NHM: Anthropological Department in the Natural History Museum Vienna (accessed on January 29, 2013)
  17. ↑ wien.orf.at “New dinosaur hall should improve image” , viewed on January 4, 2013
  18. ↑ History of Karst and Speleology (accessed on November 9, 2012)
  19. ↑ Main focus of work (accessed on November 9, 2012)
  20. ↑ Franz Brandstätter, Ludovic Ferriére, Christian Köberl: meteorite - witnesses of the formation of the solar system - illustrated on the Vienna meteorite collection. Publishing house of the Natural History Museum, Baden 2013, ISBN 978-3-902421-68-5 .
  21. ↑ Gerald JH McCall, et al .: The history of meteoritics and key meteorite collections - fireballs, falls and finds. The Geological Society, London 2006, ISBN 1-86239-194-7 , pp. 123-133: History of the meteorite collection of the Natural History Museum of Vienna .
  22. ↑ The meteorite collection nhm-wien.ac.at, (accessed on November 8, 2012)
  23. ↑ Better Know A Meteorite Collection: Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria psrd.hawaii.edu
  24. ↑ Dr. Franz Brandstätter nhm-wien.ac.at
  25. ↑ Natural History Museum: New Home for Extra-Terrestrials diepresse.com, accessed on November 7, 2012
  26. ↑ A few pieces from the moon for the "natural history" diepresse.com; A Bröckerl from the moon lands in Vienna derstandard.at, accessed on June 19, 2013
  27. ↑ Department of Ecology , nhm Vienna, accessed 25 April 2012
  28. ↑ Scoop with calf . nachricht.at.
  29. ↑ 2nd Zoological Department (insects) nhm-wien.ac.at, accessed on December 17, 2012
  30. ↑ 3rd Zoological Department , Vienna, accessed on April 25, 2012
  31. ↑ The moon. Longing, Art and Science. In: www.nhm-wien.ac.at. Retrieved October 28, 2019 .

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 18.9 ″  N , 16 ° 21 ′ 33.5 ″  E