Senckenberg Museum for Natural History Görlitz
_im_Senckenberg_Museum_f%C3%BCr_Naturkunde_NIK_5253.jpg) View of the main gate from Marienplatz |
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| Data | |
|---|---|
| place | Am Museum 1, 02826 Görlitz 
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| Art |
Natural History Museum
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| opening | October 26, 1860 |
| Number of visitors (annually) | approx. 30000 |
| operator |
Senckenberg Society for Natural Research
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| management | |
| Website | |
| ISIL | DE-MUS-849414 |
The Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Görlitz (until December 31, 2008: State Museum of Natural History) is a natural history museum with a focus on zoology , botany and geology . The main research direction is in the field of soil biology . In the years 2006 to 2017 the number of visitors was between 25,000 and 34,000, in the year of the 3rd Saxon State Exhibition in 2011 there were even 47,000 visitors.
history
In 1811 the Ornithological Society of Görlitz was founded on the initiative of the cloth merchant Johann Gottlieb Kretzschmar and the actuary Giese. The Naturforschende Gesellschaft zu Görlitz emerged from it in 1823; it was re-established in 1990 as the Upper Lusatia Natural Research Society . In the years 1858 to 1860, the Görlitzer Gesellschaft built its own museum on the centrally located Marienplatz on the site of the former city moat through the initiative of the doctor and pharmacist WJ Kleefeld and the economic commissioner Georg von Möllendorff . It was officially opened by Möllendorff on October 26, 1860. After the museum building was converted, President Walther Freise was able to reopen the collections in 1902. In 2008 the museum was accepted into the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Science Association. Since January 1, 2009, it has been part of the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, together with the Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Frankfurt am Main and the Senckenberg Natural History Collections in Dresden .
management
Reinhard Peck was appointed the first museum director of the Natural Research Society in 1885. After him the botanist Hugo von Rabenau became museum director. In 1921, after Freise's death, the biology teacher Oskar Herr took on part-time management of the museum due to a lack of money. From 1959 to 1995 Wolfram Dunger headed the Görlitz Natural History Museum. In 1995 he handed over the management of the museum to Willi Xylander .
Collection holdings
In 1819 the first specimens of 181 native land and water birds, 50 exotic birds and a collection of nests and eggs formed the “Cabinet” of the Ornithological Society. In 1827 the collection was expanded to include 150 North American bird species (from GS Oppelt, Fairfield, Canada). In 1837 the coin collection was stolen and in the same year the mineral cabinets were broken into. In 1846, three spacious rooms were rented annually on the first floor of Petersstrasse 3 for 50 Thaler to accommodate the collection. In the same year, visitors were able to marvel at the collections two mornings a week. To protect the collections from unauthorized persons, a padlock was attached to the "Kabineths-Door" in 1850. The Natural Research Society received a collection of African plants in 1858 from Johann Christian Breutel from Herrnhut (an important cryptogam specialist). The following year, the collection of the entomologist and botanist August Kelch from Ratibor was bought for 200 thalers. In 1860 the pharmacist Reinhard Peck was hired as curator (1885 first museum director). The collections experienced a significant boom during his tenure. The ornithologist and President of the Society Julius von Zittwitz campaigned for the collection to be expanded and prepared 1,500 birds for the Society himself. The museum director Hugo von Rabenau acquired the Central Asian herbarium of Sintenis and the extensive Schwarzsche beetle collection. In 1914, the museum received a gorilla from Cameroon as a gift from society member Hans Schäfer, which was a rarity in Europe at the time. In the same year, the egg collection (with 1400 eggs from 363 Central European bird species) was donated to the company by Bruno Hecker. Robert von Loebenstein's bird collection, one of the most important private bird collections in Upper Lusatia, was also donated to society in 1930. However, there was no longer any room for her in the museum and was therefore housed in the former Vogtshof (at the Peterskirche).
Today (as of 2014) around 6.5 million insects, mites, millipedes, snails, mussels, vertebrates (including 30,000 skulls), plants (around 375,000 specimens) and mushrooms as well as thousands of minerals, rocks and fossils are stored in the collections. The objects in the collection are the subject of scientific research by the museum's more than 40 researchers. The museum has a special scientific library that contains around 151,000 media items (mainly documents from the fields of zoology, soil zoology, botany, ecology, geology and paleontology). In addition to specialist literature for the research work of scientists, it also offers generally understandable literature from the fields of natural sciences and the history of the region and can be used by the public.
Exhibitions
Permanent exhibitions
The museum exhibits its exhibits on 1200 m² of exhibition space:
- Near-natural dioramas show specially prepared habitats of Upper Lusatia with their typical plants and animals (wolf, sea eagle) - from the pine heaths in the north to the Zittau mountains in the south.
- The geology exhibition shows the eventful history of the region: volcanoes, ocean beaches and coal forests. But the ice age also shaped the landscape, as the finds of mammoth and aurochs prove.
- The edaphone of the floor is shown on a floor column, enlarged 30 times.
- In the rainforest and savanna exhibitions, large and small, known and unknown inhabitants are presented: from beaked to finger animals, from harpy to ostrich, from gorilla to tiger.
- A vivarium with 70 living species from the rainforests and native regions in 12 lavishly designed landscape pools on an area of 100 m² complements the other permanent exhibitions. Feedings are regularly offered to visitors. Rarities such as the black freshwater stingray from Brazil, Malagasy tomato frogs or the Senegal pike , a "living fossil", can be seen. But also native species such as grass snakes or the Eurasian harvest mouse are represented.
Aquarium
Vivarium
Permanent exhibition mycology
Permanent exhibition rainforest
Permanent exhibition rainforest
Permanent exhibition savannah
Permanent exhibition of dioramas
Permanent exhibition geology
In addition, the museum offers play areas, multimedia, interactive learning opportunities and video films. Audio guides in German, English and Polish are available free of charge at the ticket office. The exhibitions are barrier-free for disabled visitors. Guided tours, children's events and birthdays can be requested from the museum education department.
Special exhibitions
Two special exhibitions each expand the museum's program. Special exhibitions were (selection):
- Mechanical wildlife (May 13, 2017 to October 15, 2017)
- The art of botanical painting - watercolors by Tetiana Laskarevska (from August 18 to November 18, 2018)
- Tricture 3D - your journey into prehistoric times! (from January 20th to August 12th 2018)
- T. rex & other cool heads - shape and function of the skulls (September 8, 2018 to April 25, 2019)
- Kippenboden - Soil of the Year 2019 (from March 23 to June 10, 2019)
- Amphibios - On the miracle of metamorphosis (from May 18th to November 3rd, 2019)
- Endangered Beauties - Painting by Bernd Pöppelmann (June 29 to November 17, 2019)
- Saxony raises its treasures (from November 30, 2019 to March 8, 2020)
- »Alles Schei ...« on the importance of feces for ecology, economy and research (from November 16, 2019 to April 19, 2020)
- Wondrous giant beetles - fat bugs in the Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz! (from March 21st to June 21st, 2020)
- Since 2011, a temporary exhibition in the entrance hall has been providing information on the 200-year history of the Natural Research Society of Upper Lusatia and the Museum of Natural History in Görlitz.
Special exhibition "T. rex & other cool heads" 2018
Exhibition showcase on the 200-year history of the Natural Research Society of Upper Lusatia
Traveling exhibitions
In the 2010s, the museum developed around a dozen international traveling exhibitions and thus presented its own research internationally.
This includes:
- The thin skin of the earth - our soils (chamber of life: soil animals and their biology, chamber of crumbs: soil types - their composition and use, chamber of knowledge: soils, soil biodiversity and humans, chamber of horrors: endangerment of soils)
- Via Regia - Route of Species (exhibition depicts the role of different animal and plant species as trade goods, food, hunting goods, exotic attractions and stowaways on the old trade route Via Regia )
- Wolves (using the example of Lusatian wolves to convey scientifically sound knowledge of the biology and ecology of wild wolves)
- In the land of grasses and wild horses - Biological research in Mongolia
- Float.Live. - Lively water droplets (shows film recordings of various "floating creatures" and large photos of plankton and large-format reproductions from " Art Forms of Nature " by Ernst Haeckel on banners)
- Photo exhibitions: Life under water 2012, 2014 and 2016
- Weightless - the world in water: photographs by Armin and Birgit Trutnau
- Photo exhibition: Gigantischklein (scanning electron microscope images of animals from the museum's scientific work)
- Out Of Focus: Nature photographs by Axel Gebauer
In 2018, ten Görlitz touring exhibitions were on tour.
literature
- Julia Hammerschmidt: 200 years of the Natural Research Society and Museum for Natural History Görlitz. Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz, Görlitz 2011 ( excerpt online ).
Web links
- Official website of the Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz
- Senckenberg Museum for Natural History Görlitz . In: Goerlitz.de
- Website from the sponsorship group of the Görlitz Natural History Museum
Individual evidence
- ↑ Visitor numbers Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz , press office of the museum, September 2018.
- ^ WJ Kleefeld: Memoirs. Görlitz: Hoffmann & Reiber, 1904
- ↑ Page on the vivarium , accessed on October 19, 2018
- ↑ Photos of the exhibition , accessed on October 9, 2018
- ↑ Page on the traveling exhibition “The Thin Skin of the Earth - Our Soils” , accessed on October 9, 2018
- ↑ Page on the traveling exhibition “Via Regia - Route of Species” , accessed on October 9, 2018
- ↑ Page on the traveling exhibition “Wolves” , accessed on October 9, 2018
- ↑ Page on the traveling exhibition "In the land of grasses and wild horses" , accessed on October 9, 2018
- ↑ Page on the traveling exhibition “Floating.Living. - Lively drops of water ” , accessed on October 9, 2018