City Museum Neunkirchen

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City Museum Neunkirchen

The Städtisches Museum Neunkirchen is a city ​​and district museum of the city of Neunkirchen in Lower Austria and is located at Stockhammergasse 13. The building is a listed building .

history

Founded in the 19th century

The establishment of a regional museum in Neunkirchen has been considered since the late 19th century. On the occasion of the discovery of Roman grave slabs during the foundation of the Neunkirchen printing factory in 1893, the establishment of such a "local museum" was discussed. At the request of the "KK Central Commission for Research and Conservation of Art and Historical Monuments", the Neunkirchner Druckfabriks-Actien-Gesellschaft announced that the "Roman stones" should be sent to the "intended local museum" if this came about .

The plans at that time for the establishment of a museum were mainly due to Heinrich Moses . Born in 1852, Moses (also called Mose or Moser himself) came from a Jewish peddler family from the Mattersburg area and worked as a primary school teacher in the Neunkirchen district from 1878 . Mose was a member of the Folklore Society , collected historical objects and wrote countless articles. At a trade fair in 1910, with the support of Neunkirchen's mayor Emil Stockhammer, he exhibited his historical collection, with a focus on guilds. Because of the great success with the public, the decision was made to found a local museum. That is why 1910 is still considered the year the Neunkirchen Museum was founded.

On September 25, 1911, the "Localmuseum" was opened in two rooms of the town hall . The collection consisted almost exclusively of objects from history, folklore and from the market archive. On December 28, 1914, shortly before his retirement as a teacher, Mose was given the title " Custodian of the market town of Neunkirchen" by the parish council , and he was officially appointed the first museum director. In the middle of the First World War , Moses moved to Vienna. In the course of the war, a bread card issuing office was set up in the museum rooms and the entire museum inventory was disorganized and shipped to a private house, with much being damaged or destroyed. Heinrich Mose died in 1920, the year Neunkirchen was raised to the city . With this, the Neunkirchen Museum came to a temporary end.

The collection was built up in the first half of the 20th century

In the early 1920s, the academic painter Fritz Weninger began to delve into the history of Neunkirchen and its first museum in the course of his first fresco restoration work in Neunkirchen (sundial at the Bräuhaus). After finding out about the museum from Mayor Robert Zangerl, Weninger began to collect the scattered holdings in 1926 and the city council approved the reopening of a museum in the old museum rooms in the town hall. Weninger was appointed curator of the museum on May 2, 1927. In the first two years of his activity he was able to increase the museum's holdings from around 200 to 1200 objects. His main aim was to create a clear teaching museum, especially for children. In these early years, Weninger was able to lay the foundation for the museum's extensive prehistoric and early historical collections thanks to the great archaeological discoveries in the district. But he also began collecting minerals and fossils and thus building up the house's paleontological collection. However, the emerging museum could not yet open because further long-term work was needed to build up the collection. However, these were made easier for Weninger with the active help of the senior teacher Karl Patacek and the master confectioner Rudolf Stalla.

On April 29, 1931, the new institution was finally opened under the name "Städtisches Museum Neunkirchen" in three rooms of the town hall. In July of the same year, Patacek and Stalla were finally appointed by the municipality as custodians of the museum, who from then on ran the museum together with Weninger. By 1960 there should always be two or three custodians.

Weninger was mainly responsible for folk art and archeology, as he was also the curator responsible for all excavations in the Neunkirchen district. Patacek looked after the mineralogical-paleontological collection as well as the archive and correspondence. Finally, Stalla took care of the natural history collection. The curators looked after the historical collections together. This working model proved immensely effective. Because as early as 1938 there was not enough space in the town hall's post section for the museum, which now has over 4,000 objects.

The museum in World War II and the post-war period

A solution to the space problem was found when the home of the former mayor Emil Stockhammer could be acquired on favorable terms. His foster daughter, Leopoldine Stockhammer, left the house to the community in exchange for a small pension. She and her old housemaid Marianne Weißenböck still lived in one wing of the house, but the rest offered enough space for the museum's extensive collections. This inadvertently also saved the museum collections, since the town hall and a large part of the city archive burned down completely in 1945. Leopoldine Stockhammer and her housemaid were employed as employees of the museum and saved the house and collection from war damage caused by a fire bomb and looting during the Second World War . A large part of the collections had been moved to the parish farms of Hasbach and Schwarzau in the mountains . After the end of the war, almost all objects could be returned to the museum. Among the few objects that have been lost was a high medieval sword from Schwarzau am Steinfeld.

After Stalla fell in Brest-Litowsk in 1944 and Patacek died in 1953, Weninger was appointed the academic painter Karl Steiner as the new co-custodian in 1953 at the request of the municipality. However, the relationship between the two custodians must have been more than tense and ultimately escalated in a dispute that Steiner won. Weninger complains in his report about the construction work in the museum: "... who [Karl Steiner] after various attacks on the community, that I was deposed as custodian after 26 years of construction work and that he was given sole management of the museum." However, the museum's documents show that this situation did not last long, as the municipality also wanted to provide Steiner with a co-custodian. This task was initially taken over by the painter Julius Seiser, who was replaced after a short time by the teacher Karl Bous and finally the elementary school director Karl Schmidl.

In 1957, after less than 5 years, Steiner resigned from his position as custodian and Schmidl succeeded him as sole custodian. He gave up the previously successful model of two to three curators and from then on was the only curator to head the museum. The sources for the period from 1953 to 1957 in the Städtisches Museum are only incomplete, but little progress has been made in the inventory and preparation of the museum objects during this period. Much of the museum's holdings were stored in the basement during this period without any care being taken to preserve them, which has suffered greatly. The inventory was incomplete and had not yet been checked for items that were lost in the Second World War; the work efficiency in the museum was low during this period. Under Karl Schmidl, however, the Neunkirchen Museum should experience another positive change.

Modernization and stagnation

The museum was radically redesigned under Karl Schmidl as curator. The geological-paleontological collection was arranged and reorganized by Robert Mayerhofer from the Lower Austrian State Museum . The archaeological collection was reorganized by the well-known ancient historian and archaeologist Franz Hampl , who founded the Prehistory and Early History Museum in Asparn an der Zaya in 1970 . Hampl had already carried out excavations in Neunkirchen in the mid-1950s. As early as 1956 he had built the experimental archaeological models of a roasting bed and a copper smelting furnace in the museum garden , making them one of the oldest experimental archaeological buildings in Austria.

Although Leopoldine Stockhammer no longer lived in the house where she was born in the 1950s, the former premises were now used by the curator and his family as an apartment. Schmidl wanted to create more space for the museum's collections. Therefore, in 1959, the construction of a house for the curator in the middle of the large museum garden began and the museum's exhibition space grew from 6 rooms to 12 rooms, which meant that a large part of the museum collections could actually be presented for the first time.

Schmidl also had the historical, folklore and economic collections from experts from the N.Ö. Relocate the State Museum. He also wanted to make the museum more attractive by giving it the then modern name "Heimatmuseum". After lengthy renovation work, the museum was reopened on March 25, 1961 under the name "Heimatmuseum Neunkirchen".

In the following decades Schmidl developed a lively activity for the museum. He promoted the archaeological collection and was involved in numerous excavations throughout the district. Numerous essays, publications, newspaper articles and a chronicle of Neunkirchen come from his pen and prove his success in researching Neunkirchen's town and district history. In addition, Schmidl tried to keep in close contact with the various institutes of the University of Vienna and made the Neunkirchen local history museum a center of research. The museum acquired such a good reputation that objects were regularly borrowed for Lower Austrian provincial exhibitions or other large-scale exhibitions until the early 1990s . Schmidl wanted to make the museum attractive to all levels of education and dealt with museum education such as children's activities in the museum. Through constant new acquisitions, he increased the museum's holdings, so that the space for the meanwhile 9,000 objects, most of which were temporarily stored in the attic, became too small again. Around 1975 he was already thinking of creating an external storage facility and expanding the museum building with additional showrooms. These projects were ruined by Schmidl's sudden death in 1976. His wife Maria then took over the management of the museum on an interim basis as curator for one year. Finally, the secondary school teacher Dietmar Brenner took up his post as the new curator on December 1, 1977.

Since many of the museum's written holdings were endangered by improper storage, a separate city ​​archive was established in 1979 , to which most of the written material was handed over. Since the municipality wanted rooms for special exhibitions in the museum in 1986, the two rooms for the geological-paleontological collection and the archaeological collection were quickly cleared and adapted for this purpose. The geological-palaeontological collection was reorganized in a newly built extension, but was later mostly inaccessible. The archaeological finds went to the depot for the next 25 years. From 1987 to 1995 and since 2004, the museum has held annual special exhibitions. During this period, however, the museum also faced many problems that contributed to its slow stagnation. The permanent exhibition has not been redesigned since the 1970s, which, together with a lack of advertising, led to a decline in visitor numbers. In 2001/02 only 30 to 40 people (apart from school classes) visited the museum each year. The holdings of the museum were acutely threatened by wood worms, the inventory book was no longer kept and loans were exchanged without correspondence. All these factors led to the fact that there was hardly any public interest in a local museum and there was even speculation about the dissolution of the museum.

A new upswing

In 2005, at the request of the municipality, the custodian was assigned the prehistory and early history student Peter Pesseg as a research assistant, who finally became his successor in 2007. During this time, numerous innovations in the museum were decided. In addition to woodworm fumigation and reprocessing of the holdings using digital inventory, the museum was connected to district heating in 2009, which means that year-round operation is now possible. After the caretaker moved out of the former custodian house in the museum garden, it was given a new purpose. Today it is used as an office building and depot for sensitive objects. Curator Pesseg already made it clear that a second curator would be desirable for the numerous tasks that arise in the museum. After he stepped down in mid-2010, two new curators were hired to jointly run the museum. At the same time, work began on converting the display collections into a modern presentation. The Prehistory and Early History Collection was able to reopen on April 1, 2011, after being revised and reorganized. As an outward sign of the new change towards a modern museum, the institution received its old name “Städtisches Museum Neunkirchen” back on the same day.

collection

The museum's extensive collections include around 7,000 individual objects belonging to a wide variety of collection areas. While much of these collections are on display, some may not have enough space to display them.

The geological-paleontological collection

The mineralogical collection of the museum includes all minerals and rocks of the Neunkirchen district, most of which were also used in industry. The most common rocks on display also include Grünbach coal and Rohrbach conglomerate . A special rarity is the orthoriebeckite (trout stone), which is only found in the area around Gloggnitz. This collection has been continuously built up by the curators since the 1920s.

The creation of the palaeontological collection began as early as the 1920s, but not even a hundred fossils were collected over the decades. It was only through the donation of the collection of the local researcher and hobby palaeontologist Ernst Matzke in 1982 that the inventory was expanded to over 1000 pieces, including some rarities. The collection contains not only fossils from the Neunkirchen district, but also from the Wr. Neustadt Land, Baden and Northern Burgenland. In addition to a few sparse finds from the Paleozoic (Earth Age), the collection includes rich holdings from the Mesozoic (Earth Middle Ages), including especially mussels, tower snails, ammonites and corals. Highlights are fossilized crab claws and the fossilized marsh plants of the Upper Cretaceous from the Grünbach coal mine and of course the bone casts of Struthiosaurus austriacus from the Muthmannsdorf coal mine, Austria's most important dinosaur find. The finds from the Cenozoic (Earth Modern Age) date mainly from the Miocene era and consist primarily of marine life, including finds of fish vertebrae and shark teeth. A specialty are the bones of a manatee (Metaxytherium petersi). The Pliocene finds from Rohrbach near Ternitz include, in addition to leaf prints, above all fossilized animal tracks about 4 million years old, including the large track of an amphicyonid (dog bear). Among the finds from the last Ice Age, cave bear bones are particularly worth mentioning (including a complete skull) and the remains of a mammoth.

The Prehistory and Prehistory Collection

The main features of the prehistoric and early historical collection have existed for as long as the museum itself. A Roman grave stele discovered around 1780 and the Roman finds from the foundations of the printing factory in 1893 were exhibited in the first museum from 1911. The collection was greatly expanded , especially through the major archaeological excavations of the 1920s (Latène - Neunkirchen burial ground, Slavonic burial ground Pottschach) and continuously expanded through excavations and litter finds throughout the district area in the further course of the 20th century. The findings of the excavation of a Roman strip house in Neunkirchen from 2011 represent the conclusion so far. Stone Age litter finds mainly include stone tools (axes, hatchets, flint stones, friction plates) and ceramics from the entire district. In addition to bronze weapons and tools as well as ceramics, the finds from the Bronze Age include a deposit of Würflach (dagger, lance, needle) and above all finds from the Bronze Age mining area of Hafning . In this context, the models of a roasting bed and a copper smelting furnace by Prein an der Rax , built in 1956 by Franz Hampl in the garden of the museum , are among the oldest experimental archaeological buildings in Austria. Most of the Iron Age finds come from the grave field of the Latène culture in the northwest of the city. A warrior grave with rich gifts has been reconstructed in the museum. Most of the previous Roman finds come from the two burial grounds of the Roman Neunkirchen (grave stelae, grave goods, ceramics) or from the district. Particularly noteworthy is the depot find of a Roman coin treasure from the area around the southern burial ground. Finds from the Avar and Slavic burial fields of Rohrbach , Pottschach and Wartmannstetten bear witness to the settlement of the district in the early Middle Ages .

Web links

Commons : Städtisches Museum Neunkirchen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Monthly Gazette of the Alterthums-Verein zu Wien, Volume IV", 1893; P. 77
  2. ^ Hauser, Alois in: "Report of the KKCentral Commission for the Preservation and Research of Art and Historical Monuments on their Activities in 1893", Vienna - Leipzig, 1894; P. 55
  3. ^ "Agricultural and industrial exhibition in Neunkirchen 1910. Exhibition catalog", Neunkirchen, 1910; Pp. 138-139
  4. ^ Schmidl, Karl: "Chronik Neunkirchens", Neunkirchen 1965
  5. ↑ Milchram, Gerhard: "Heinrich Moses / Mose / Moser (1852–1920). Elementary school teacher - folklorist - local historian - museum founder"; in: Our home 79, issue 1, 2008
  6. ^ Weninger, Fritz: "The municipal museum"; in: "Neunkirchen 1918-1928. The construction work of the township in the first decade of the republic.", Neunkirchen, 1928, pp. 41–42
  7. ↑ Weninger, Fritz: "Report on 35 years of building up the Museum Neunkirchen", Neunkirchen 1961, pp. 1-3
  8. ^ Schmidl, Karl: "Activity report of the museum 1959", Neunkirchen 1960, pp. 1-3
  9. ^ Schmidl, Karl: "Das Heimatmuseum in Neunkirchen", Neunkirchen 1960, pp. 1–2
  10. ^ Schmidl, Karl: "Annual reports from the local history museum 1961-1975", Neunkirchen 1961-1975
  11. ^ Brenner, Dietmar: "Das Heimatmuseum Neunkirchen 1977-2007"; in: 100 Years of Neunkirchen Local History Museum 1910-2010. Our history you can touch ", Neunkirchen 2010, p. 18
  12. ↑ a b History page of the Neunkirchen local history museum homepage
  13. ↑ a b Dehio: 2003: page 1552
  14. ^ Brenner, Dietmar: The Neunkirchen local history museum 1977-2007. In: 100 Years of Neunkirchen Local History Museum 1910-2010. Our history you can touch. Neunkirchen 2010, pp. 19-20.
  15. ↑ Scherzer, Wilfried (2003): “Kustos wants Museums-Gütesiegel”, in: Schwarzataler Bezirksbote, year 2003, September 11, 2003, p. 9
  16. ↑ Scherzer, Wilfried: Heimatmuseum is in crisis. In: Schwarzataler Bezirksbote. Born in 2003, August 21, 2003, p. 10.
  17. ↑ Pesseg, Peter: The Neunkirchner museum in 2008 until today. In: 100 Years of Neunkirchen Local History Museum 1910-2010. Our history you can touch. Neunkirchen 2010, pp. 19-20.
  18. ^ Dehio manual. The art monuments of Austria: Lower Austria south of the Danube. Part 2. M - Z. Neunkirchen. Horn / Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85028-365-8 . Page 1545

Coordinates: 47 ° 43 ′ 21.7 "  N , 16 ° 4 ′ 59"  E