Panoptikum Mannheim

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Logo from the Panoptikum Mannheim

The Panoptikum Mannheim was the largest German wax museum to date . It was opened on May 11, 2013 in the Mannheim town hall . However, the exhibition was stopped again on May 31, 2014. Until then it was operated by Panoptikum Mannheim Betriebsgesellschaft mbH .

History and background

Castan's Panopticum was opened in Berlin in 1869 as Germany's first wax museum . With the upcoming cinema boom , it had to close in 1922. In 1972 the Panoptikum was reopened in the shop-in-shop shopping center on Joachimstaler Straße / Ku᾽damm-Eck. The figures from the wax figure collection of around 200 objects were brought back by a German entrepreneur in 1960. In 1996 the exhibition in the new Berlin Panoptikum was closed due to construction work and reopened on May 11, 2013 under the name Panoptikum Mannheim on the 3rd floor of the Mannheim town hall . The Mannheimer Panoptikum was closed on May 31, 2014 due to rent debts. The historical waxes and plasters were then sold and the collection as a whole was lost to the public and academia.

collection

The collection consisted of over 300 exhibits. Most of the figures came from the original collection of Castan's Panopticum . These included historical scenes and personalities such as emperors and kings as well as medical wax moulages and representations of clinical pictures. The oldest exhibits were from the late 19th century. For the newer figures, among others, Esther Leber and Christian Paschold were the performing artists.

exhibition

Compared to other systems operated with great technical effort, the Panoptikum Mannheim referred more to the origins of the wax figure cabinets in terms of exhibition space and staging. The approximately 850 m² exhibition area was divided into two areas:

The white cabinet housed the younger exhibits and historical figures such as politicians and stars as well as death masks from historically relevant people such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Friedrich Schiller and Kaiser Wilhelm I. The white cabinet thus gave the impression of a modern wax museum.

The Black Cabinet focused on the history and panoptics of the 19th century. Among other things, scenes from history, a magnificent throne room full of kings and an ethnological collection with depictions of various Indians and natives were on view here. A special feature here was the medical department, whose wax moulages were brought together from Dresden , Hamburg , Munich and Berlin .

Web links

Commons : Panoptikum Mannheim  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of the Panoptikum Mannheim ( Memento from December 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Panoptikum Mannheim Betriebsgesellschaft mbH. company24.info, accessed September 15, 2017 .
  3. Former Berlin wax museum moves to Mannheim. neckar-chronik.de, August 14, 2012, accessed on September 15, 2017 .
  4. Berlin Panoptikum - Castan's Panopticum. Central and State Library Berlin, accessed on September 15, 2017 .
  5. Harald Berlinghof: Mannheimer Panoptikum: Loriot has to pack his suitcase. Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung , June 6, 2014, accessed on September 15, 2017 .
  6. Angelika Friederici: Castan's Panopticum. castans-panopticum.de, accessed on September 15, 2017 .

Coordinates: 49 ° 29 ′ 11.6 "  N , 8 ° 27 ′ 56.5"  E