City museums Heilbronn
The Heilbronn City Museums are a network of various museums in the City of Heilbronn . The seat of the museums is in the Deutschhof . The focus of the museum in the Deutschhof is on archeology, cultural history and art. The museum in the Deutschhof has been structurally connected to the House of City History in the Heilbronn City Archives since 2012 . The city's museums also include the Vogelmann art gallery , which opened in 2010 and was built as an extension of the city's Harmonie an der Allee festival hall and operated jointly with the Heilbronn art association .
history
Origins of the Heilbronn museums
The Heilbronn museum system is relatively young, as there was no stately art chamber or the like in the former imperial city and the municipal collecting activity was limited to manuscripts, books and sheet music until the 19th century. On February 27, 1876, the Heilbronn Historical Society was founded in Heilbronn . In May 1876, the city of Heilbronn made space on the first floor of the Heilbronn meat shop available to this association for a future historical museum. In December 1876, an appeal for donations in kind was sent to the population. The Historical Museum was opened on June 24, 1879. After the collection was initially still relatively small and the museum was only open every second Sunday from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. during the summer months, he learned about it from the chairman of the historical department since 1899 Association officiating city doctor Alfred Schliz (1849-1915) until his death in 1915 a significant expansion with primarily prehistoric and prehistoric finds as well as other donations in kind from the population. In May 1905 the museum was reopened after a redesign. In 1906 the museum's holdings comprised around 3,000 exhibits, around 1,200 of which were on prehistory and early history. In 1907 the historical association and the city of Heilbronn agreed longer opening times for the museum. In 1910, on an initiative by Alfred Schliz, the Robert Mayer Room was set up in memory of the physicist Robert Mayer (1814–1878) who was born in Heilbronn . The exhibits in this room mainly included Mayer's personal legacies. After Schliz's death, Moriz von Rauch (1868–1928) took over the management of the historical association and thus also of the museum. A spectacular incident occurred in September 1919, when almost the entire coin collection of the museum, comprising 600 exhibits, was stolen. The number of visitors to the Historical Museum rose in the years up to 1921 to around 4,800 visitors per summer half-year. After 1921, however, the number of visitors fell sharply. In 1931 there were only 300 visitors. The reason given is the total overcrowding of the rooms.
The Unterländer branch of the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg , which was founded in Heilbronn in 1913 , aimed to set up a natural history museum immediately after it was founded. For this purpose, a natural science museum association started its work in 1914. On the occasion of Robert Mayer's 100th birthday, the association was given premises in the former morgue in the old cemetery, which was specially expanded for this purpose . The Robert Mayer Museum for Natural History was opened there in 1916 . On the ground floor were geological , upstairs zoological exhibits shown. The historical association donated the mineral and petrefact collection of the Heilbronn hospital doctor Ernst Friedrich Theodor Roman (1828–1862) to the new museum .
The Mayor of Heilbronn, Emil Beutinger (1875–1957), owned an extensive private wine collection . From its holdings, a wine-growing museum was finally opened in the student dormitory of the Karlsgymnasium at Karlstrasse 44 in 1921 , which Beutinger managed himself until 1933. Beutinger also suggested the establishment of a bee museum .
As early as the early 1920s, various problems emerged in the Heilbronn museums. In addition to the already mentioned declining number of visitors to the Historical Museum , there was the financial shortage of the facilities that were dependent on municipal subsidies, as well as the shortage of space in the existing buildings. The Robert-Mayer-Museum für Naturkunde has had an acute lack of space since acquiring the extensive fossil and mineral collection of the Calwer Bergrats Schütz. The Neckar newspaper reported repeatedly on plans to reorganize the Heilbronn museums. In 1928 consideration was given to the creation of a larger museum in the buildings on Heilbronner Hafenmarkt, in 1929 the Bläß'sche Palais was proposed as the central museum .
Reorganization of the museums from 1933
Under Alfred Schliz junior, who headed the historical association from 1933, the Heilbronn museums were reorganized from 1933 to 1936. The student dormitory at Karlstrasse 44 was no longer used as such, so that the city was able to provide 15 illuminated and heated rooms for museum purposes. The Robert-Mayer-Museum für Naturkunde moved from the old cemetery to the premises in Karlstraße and was able to present its geological collection there, as well as zoological exhibits, objects from the mission and colonial areas as well as the inventory for the planned beekeeping museum and exhibits for viticulture. The inauguration of the Robert Mayer Museum for Natural History in the new premises took place on January 13, 1935.
The Alfred Schliz Museum for local prehistory and early history was opened in the vacated premises in the Old Cemetery on December 21, 1935. It was named after Alfred Schliz senior and presented excavation finds from the Stone Age to the Alemannic-Franconian settlement period .
On December 6, 1936, the Historical Museum in the Fleischhaus finally reopened its doors. In future, the focus there was primarily on exhibits relating to the history of the city and folklore, as well as the Robert Mayer room and changing special exhibitions. In 1936 there were a total of five collections in 24 rooms. In 1938, the Robert Mayer exhibits were temporarily moved to their own Robert Mayer Museum in Robert Mayer's house at Kirchhöfle 13 , which, however, was soon abandoned, after which the exhibits were returned to the Historical Museum .
Destruction in World War II
During the Second World War, all Heilbronn museums were destroyed in the air raid on Heilbronn on December 4, 1944 . The local NSDAP leadership had previously shown no willingness to approve money or logistics for the outsourcing of stocks. As a result, around 90% of the collections were destroyed along with the buildings. Among the few objects that have been relocated and therefore preserved on the initiative of the honorary museum director Hellmut Braun and the archivist Alexander Renz are the handbooks and estate objects of Robert Mayer as well as various individual objects and pictures from the Historical Museum , which are in the Schöntal Monastery , in Domeneck Castle , in the Lower Castle Bonfeld and Gut Seehof survived the destruction of Heilbronn. The building at Karlstrasse 44 and the collections it contained were a total loss, while a small part of mostly stone exhibits was preserved under the rubble of the meat store and the Schliz Museum.
As early as November 1945, calls for donations in kind were made to the population to rebuild the collections. The city also agreed to purchase objects of historical significance. In December 1945, the teacher and local researcher Wilhelm Mattes (1884–1960) , who had been associated with the museum since 1933, reported the recovery of 300 objects from the destroyed Schliz Museum in the Old Cemetery. Another rescue campaign in the ruins followed in May / June 1946. The building was later completely demolished. In the meantime, the existing stocks had also been recovered from the ruin of the meat shop and reorganized. Some stone monuments were provided with improvised protective roofs in the ruins. In March 1947, the mayor's office reported to the Württemberg State Museum about the destruction of exhibits during the war, but also about thefts since the destruction.
In November 1947, the tentative reconstruction began with the re-establishment of the historical association and a list of the rescued cultural and museum assets initiated by the Heilbronn City Archives . Meanwhile, the city planning office was considering releasing the ruin of the meat store to private investors to build a grocery store. After the intervention of the former board of the historical association, the bank director Georg Rümelin, the conversion could finally be averted, so that the meat house was rebuilt for the historical museum . The topping-out ceremony was celebrated on April 5, 1950.
A new beginning in the meat shop
In November 1951, the city and the historical association agreed that all existing and future objects of the historical museum would become the property of the city and be administered in trust by the historical association. Wilhelm Mattes took on the voluntary task of building up the collections. In 1959 he received the Ring of Honor of the City of Heilbronn for his services.
The reconstruction of the meat shop dragged on until 1953. In addition to the historical museum , the building also housed exhibitions of the Heilbronner Künstlerbund and Heilbronner Kunstverein in partly undeveloped rooms . The city archives also moved into their quarters on the upper floor of the building in March 1952. In 1953 the Robert Mayer Archive and Museum was inaugurated in the northwest room on the first floor. In 1954, the city tourist office received a room on the ground floor of the building. Finally, in 1955, the Historical Museum was able to open the exhibition on prehistory and early history drawn up by Wilhelm Mattes on the ground floor of the building and enlarged its exhibition space in 1957 after the tourist office moved out. City history exhibits were shown in the new areas on the ground floor.
In the mid-1950s there were considerations to restore the museums in Heilbronn. In the field of art, due to the lack of historical exhibits, the main options were a concentration on the collection of modern painting and sculpture or the opening of an art hall for temporary exhibitions of loaned works. Former Mayor Beutinger, who laid the foundations for the Viticulture and Bee Museum in the 1920s, advocated the establishment of a viticulture museum. In 1954, building officer Willi Zimmermann brought up a Neckar museum. Wilhelm Mattes welcomed the suggestions, but also warned that the modest circumstances should be taken into account and demanded that the focus be kept on prehistory. After his death in 1960, the teacher and local researcher Werner Heim (1906–1978) became part-time director of the museum. Heim intensified its collecting and exhibition activities, especially in the area of city history. He acquired a 13 square meter model of the old town of Heilbronn, Neckar ship models, porcelain, pewter objects, scales and weights and much more. He also used space in the Heilbronn town hall , in the shooting house or in the Harmonie concert and congress center for exhibitions .
In the 1960s, various renovations and conversions took place at the Fleischhaus, not least because of the extract from the city archive that was completed in January 1967, after which the Historical Museum was able to use two floors as exhibition space. On March 22, 1967, the renovated meat store was reopened. Exhibits on prehistory and early history took up the ground floor, city history and temporary exhibitions on the first floor. In the first year after the reopening, around 24,000 visitors were counted; the 100,000th visitor was welcomed in 1972.
The conception of the museum continued to focus on prehistory, for which Gustav Scholl (1895–1980) was appointed curator in 1961 . In a position jointly created by the city and district of Heilbronn, the prehistoric and early historian Dr. Robert Koch worked at the museum from 1969 to 1975 with excavations and the publication of find reports. From 1970 to 1974 eleven art exhibitions with a regional focus were also held in the Historical Museum , including works by Hermann Busse , Maria Fitzen-Wohnsiedler , Clara Vogedes , Richard Hohly and Walter Maisak . Other exhibitions from that time were dedicated to cultural-historical topics such as the history of regional newspapers, the old Heilbronn city theater or regional farm furniture.
Reorientation from the 1970s
As early as 1970, Werner Heim saw the future development of the Heilbronn Museum in a division of the collection areas. In addition to prehistory and early history, the city's history with the history of the Neckar shipping as well as the salt trade and salt mining on the lower Neckar, a Unterländer gallery, a collection on viticulture and folklore as well as various special collections should be on equal terms.
The move away from the previous prehistoric focus took place in 1977 when the art historian Andreas Pfeiffer was appointed the first full-time museum director. When the name was changed from Historisches Museum to Städtische Museen Heilbronn in 1979, the new multi-dimensional orientation of the municipal collections was also formally expressed.
Up to 1991 Pfeiffer held 35 art exhibitions that mainly focused on sculptures from the 19th and 20th centuries. The exhibition Nature - Figure - Sculpture on the occasion of the State Horticultural Show in 1985 with a 1700 meter long avenue of sculptures between the city center and the garden show grounds with 74 figures by 49 artists attracted particular attention . Under Pfeiffer's direction the city of Heilbronn acquired 51 contemporary sculptures. Many of the acquisitions made at that time are among the sculptures in public space in Heilbronn today .
Under the direction of the prehistoric and early historian Rolf Hermann , who came to the Historical Museum as a research assistant and later headed the Natural History Museum , the museum acquired the important Triassic collection of Güglinger Oberforstrats Dr. Otto Linck (1892–1985), who was also honored with a special exhibition on his 90th birthday in 1982. Other significant additions to the collection were the mineral collection of the entrepreneur's widow Heida Ackermann, whose heirs donated the collection to the museum in 1983, and parts of the paleontological collection of Rudolf Mundlos (1918–1988), who was also honored with an exhibition on his 65th birthday in 1983.
Like the other branches of the collection, the Archaeological Museum was given full-time management in the 1980s.
In 1980, Willi Zimmermann created the room program for the Neckar Shipping Museum, which had been planned for decades and which moved into rooms in the Alte Milchhof in Frankfurter Strasse in 1983 . In 1990 a permanent exhibition on viticulture in Heilbronn was added to the dairy farm.
In 1986 the city created a conceptual framework for a Robert Mayer Museum in the Hagenbucher warehouse, which was built in 1936 . The plans were specified again in 1995, but never materialized. The Hagenbucher , which was also in discussion for various other museum projects from 1999, was instead mostly only used as a warehouse and as an action space for New Art in the Hagenbucher for cost reasons , before the Science Center Experimenta finally moved there in 2009 after extensive renovations .
With the purchase of a bozzetto from Aristide Maillol in 1987, the long-term financial support of the Heilbronn museums by Ernst Vogelmann , the former owner of Cilischemie GmbH, began.
Relocation to the Deutschhof
The Deutschhof , a former commander of the Teutonic Order and one of the oldest settlement centers in the city, was destroyed like all of Heilbronn's inner city in the air raid on December 4, 1944. In 1958 the city decided to rebuild it as a cultural center with a city library, archive, exhibition rooms and adult education center. The reconstruction of the entire complex took place in several stages and was not completed until 1977 when the archive building was completed. The city archive had its own exhibition space there in the future, where, among other things , the 3 × 4.35 meter model of the old imperial city , built in 1963/64 and previously set up in the entrance hall of the Heilbronn town hall , could be seen.
In June 1990 the museum's prehistoric and early historical collections moved from the Fleischhaus to the Deutschhof. In 1991 the archeology museum, the permanent exhibition with sculptures and an exhibition on the city and industrial history were opened there. In the Deutschhof, museum educational offers will also come to the fore in future . Since the early 1990s, the two permanent exhibitions Heilbronner Schauplätze and The Past Traced have been on view in the same building complex in the city archive .
In 1992 Dieter Brunner became exhibition manager at the Städtische Galerie. In the first twelve years up to 2003, around 100 special exhibitions with a focus on art took place. Also in 1992 Joachim Hennze became director of the museum in the Milchhof.
In September 1993, Wolfgang Hansch became the director of the Natural History Museum that remained in the Fleischhaus and welcomed its one millionth visitor in 1993 since it reopened in 1967 . The meat store was renovated from 1996 to 1998 and then reopened with a focus on the representation of the Heilbronn-Franconia region as a Triassic landscape as well as supra-regional geological topics. From 1994 to 2004 there were also 18 special exhibitions in the Fleischhaus, of which the Ice Age exhibition in 2000 had the most visitors.
In 2003, the municipal museums were incorporated as a cultural institute into the school, culture and sports department of the city of Heilbronn. In 2004, the art historian Marc Gundel succeeded Andreas Pfeiffer as director of the city's museums. In the same year the museums in the Milchhof were closed for financial reasons. The municipal lapidarium is still there.
present
In 2009, the Natural History Museum left the meat house and moved with his stocks also in the nearby Deutschhof on, while part of the local art collections in the 2009/10 as an extension of the concert and congress center harmony built and together with the Heilbronner Kunstverein operated Kunsthalle birdman was relocated . The Kunsthalle was named after the long-time patron of the Heilbronn museums, whose foundation contributed to the construction costs with a donation of one million euros. The Kunsthalle was opened on October 2, 2010 with the exhibition Beuys for everyone! Editions and multiples showing around eighty multiples by Joseph Beuys from the collection of the Ernst Franz Vogelmann Foundation, which the Foundation acquired in 2007 on permanent loan to the city of Heilbronn.
In the summer of 2012, the last major remodeling of the collections took place. After the Heilbronn city archive converted its previous permanent city history exhibition in the Deutschhof into the House of City History with a generous donation from the entrepreneur Otto Rettenmaier , the exhibition rooms of the city museums and the city archive are structurally connected. The structural connection of the museum to the archive exhibition led to a redesign of the museum's exhibition on urban history and, last but not least, to an expansion and alignment of the opening times of both institutions.
Collections
The archaeological collection of the Heilbronn Municipal Museums includes archaeological finds from the area, which has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, especially in the area of the fertile Neckar Basin . The oldest exhibits, 600,000 year old animal bones, come from the Frankenbach gravel. The focus of the collection area is on finds from the Stone Age and the Roman Age , but the entire collection covers exhibits from all eras up to modern times. The outstanding objects include women's jewelry from the second millennium BC from a burial mound near Heilbronn-Klingenberg , the replica of the Heilbronn leg box destroyed in World War II as one of the earliest regional testimonies of Christianity, the museum grave of the Horkheim rider from the late 6th century as well as a filigree leather shoe from the 13th century, which was found in 1961 during excavations on the Heilbronn market square. A separate exhibition area is dedicated to the Talheim massacre , which could be reconstructed on the basis of 34 Neolithic skeleton finds.
The cultural-historical collection focuses on the use of the Neckar near Heilbronn, the Heilbronn paper industry and the silver goods factory Peter Bruckmann & Sons as well as other Heilbronn industrial pioneers.
The art collection focuses on small sculptures and bozzetti as well as on painting and graphics with regional references. The small sculptures on display include works by internationally renowned artists such as Ernst Barlach , Käthe Kollwitz , Wilhelm Lehmbruck , Henri Matisse , Henry Moore and Auguste Rodin , but also numerous objects by regional artists such as Erich Henschel , Gunther Stilling and Erwin Wortelkamp . Among the regional painters are the history painter and portraitist Heinrich Friedrich Füger and Hal Busse , who worked in the second half of the 20th century, and the graphic artists, the Wolff brothers, who were lithographers in the 19th century, with numerous exhibits. The collection also includes more than 70 large sculptures that are in public spaces throughout the city.
Publications
The Heilbronn Municipal Museums began an extremely lively publication activity in 1969 with the publication of the Heilbronner Museumhefte . Since the 1970s, well over 100 catalogs for special exhibitions have been added to the museum booklets, and the municipal museums have also been publishing the magazine museo , which has been published around once or twice a year since 1991 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilhelm Mattes: The Historical Museum in Reconstruction , in: Historischer Verein Heilbronn, 21st publication, Heilbronn 1954, p. 56.
literature
- 125 years of the museum in Heilbronn. Romanticism on the Neckar (= museo . Band 21 ). City Museums Heilbronn, Heilbronn 2004, ISBN 3-930811-97-9 .
