Philipp Reis House
Coordinates: 50 ° 15 '25.3 " N , 8 ° 38' 31.69" O
The Philipp-Reis-Haus is a municipal museum in Friedrichsdorf im Taunus. It is housed in the former home of the inventor of the telephone, Philipp Reis .
museum
An exhibition on the life and work of the inventor Philipp Reis as well as the development of the telephone from its beginnings until today is shown . In addition to the biographical rooms with original furniture, the invention and further development of the telephone is presented in the "Telecommunications" room. Telephone sets tell their story here as a listening station; the historical apparatus can be touched.
The house, first mentioned in 1790, was bought by Philipp Reis in 1858. He lived there with his wife Margarethe and their two children until his death. He converted the barn behind the house into a workshop and invented the telephone here around 1860. After Reis' death, his family initially lived in the house, but his daughter-in-law eventually sold it. From then on, the owners changed and the house was to be demolished. On the initiative of Professor Karl Willy Wagner , who also dealt with telecommunications technology, the building was placed under monument protection in 1952 and a Philipp Reis memorial was set up. From 2004 a renewed expansion took place, which expanded the Philipp-Reis-Haus by several departments.
The museum offers, among other things, costume tours (“Frau Reis tells”). An inventor's workshop introduces children to the physical phenomena of electricity, acoustics and optics in a playful way. There are lectures and musical evenings on various topics. Every two years in May, “Telephone Day” is celebrated on International Museum Day, during which the museum “takes to the streets” with a variety of activities.
The upper floor shows the (economic) history of the place founded by Huguenots . The city was named after its founder Friedrich II of Hessen-Homburg , whose oil portrait is on display. Some pieces point to the Huguenot tradition (Huguenot cross, French hymn book, bridal crown).
The Friedrichsdorfer once mastered the art of whitening . Luminous fabrics became a sought-after commodity, so that there were 45 dye houses along Hugenottenstrasse alone. The process of dyeing is explained in a generally understandable way in the exhibition. The model of a dyer's cottage shows the production of the colorful fabrics from the Taunus. After the end of textile production, rusks took on a prominent position in the local economy. Friedrichsdorf known as the “city of rusks” supplied the Russian tsar as well as the emperor in Vienna.
Museum garden
In the museum garden, an extension of the Philipp-Reis-Haus, plants with urban history grow, explained and supplemented by text panels and sculptures. Dye plants such as woad and reseda are grown in one area . In 2009, the sculptor Eberhard Müller-Fries , who lives in Oberursel, made a sculpture for the garden, the shape of which is based on the Reis apparatus from 1863.
Publications
Since 2000, the museum has published the yearbook “Friedrichsdorfer Schriften. Materials on the history, art and culture of the city of Friedrichsdorf ”.
Web links
- Information about the museum on the website of the community Friedrichsdorf
- Information about the museum at museen-in-hessen.de