Urania (Berlin)

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The Urania house at Urania 17 (corner of Kleiststrasse)

The Berlin society Urania was founded in 1888 with the aim of making scientific knowledge accessible to a lay public. With its wide-ranging program, Urania is now a non-profit educational institution known beyond Berlin and Germany.

prehistory

The former building on Invalidenstrasse in Berlin, inaugurated in 1889 (architect: Paul Emanuel Spieker )

The first impetus was provided by Alexander von Humboldt in 1827/1828 with his public "Kosmos Lectures" in what was then the Berlin Singakademie , right next to the Berlin University (today: Humboldt University in Berlin ). Humboldt addressed broad sections of the population with his scientific lectures - among his listeners were both craftsmen and members of court society, including King Friedrich Wilhelm III.  - and thus complemented the popular educational intentions of his brother Wilhelm von Humboldt . The astronomer Wilhelm Foerster , once a student of Alexander von Humboldt and later director of the Berlin observatory , continued his teacher's approaches. Together with the astronomer Max Wilhelm Meyer , who had moved from Vienna and who had already pursued similar plans in the Danube city, he planned a permanent establishment that should be permanently suitable for bringing solid specialist knowledge to a lay audience. The two respected scholars were able to win prominent donors for their project, including the industrialist Werner von Siemens .

History of Urania

Historical exhibit (on display in the Science Center Spectrum )

concept

The founding concept envisaged a new type of institution, which was to consist of an observatory - the first public observatory in the world -, scientific and technical exhibitions and a scientific theater. With a donation of 205,000 marks , a very substantial sum at the time, the “Urania Society” was founded on March 3, 1888 in the form of a stock corporation. It got its name after the muse Urania , who was considered the patron goddess of astronomy in Greek mythology . The task of the new facility, formulated in the founding statute, was to "spread the joy of knowledge of nature". The first Urania building was erected on Invalidenstrasse and inaugurated on July 1, 1889. It was largely destroyed in World War II; the northeast lecture hall was retained and integrated into the new police station building.

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The departments for astronomy, physics and microscopy were particular attractions . The innovative offer, in which the visitors were able to playfully participate in various experiments for the first time, generated great interest. In the first year of operation, 98,000 visitors came, six years later there were 178,000. The successful concept was adopted at home and abroad, and associations were quickly founded, for example in Magdeburg , Hamburg , Kassel , Jena , Chemnitz , Prague , Budapest , Graz and Vienna .

Observatory

Urania Berlin 1896 - The astronomical department

As the main instrument for the Urania observatory, Carl Bamberg's company built a 12-inch refractor in 1889, which was opened to the public at the end of December of the same year. At that time the so-called Bamberg refractor with its opening of 314 millimeters and a focal length of five meters was the largest telescope in Prussia and after the Strasbourg refractor the second largest in the German Empire . With him, the astronomer Gustav Witt , who worked at the facility, discovered the asteroids Berolina and Eros . The Urania received the observatory code 537 from the Minor Planet Center . As the first astronomer at the Urania observatory, Friedrich Simon Archenhold was employed from 1889 and Bruno Hans Bürgel worked there from 1894 to 1899 .

Effects of war

Postage stamp from 1988

A difficult phase had to be survived during the two world wars and the intervening global economic crisis towards the end of the 1920s; the second Urania building, built by Walter Hentschel in Taubenstrasse in 1895/1896 , was given up in 1928; all activities were severely restricted during this time. The Bamberg refractor was dismantled in 1951 in the destroyed Urania building and brought to the Wilhelm Foerster observatory on Papestrasse . In 1953, Urania was re-established as a registered association and began its activities on the premises of the Technical University of Berlin . Readings by famous writers such as Heinrich Böll , Max Frisch and Günter Grass attracted a large number of visitors . The areas of art and entertainment have now been increasingly included in the program planning. Urania has had its location in Berlin-Schöneberg near Wittenbergplatz since 1962 .

In the GDR , the Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge was founded in East Berlin in 1954 , also with reference to the Urania of the prewar period and as a reaction to the establishment of the association of the same name in West Berlin in 1953 . The publications of this mass organization appeared in the new Urania-Verlag , which had been founded in Jena in 1947 and took up the publishing name of Urania from the Weimar Republic . From 1966, the Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge received the additional name Urania , which was used as a written short name in capital letters URANIA.

Urania today

Urania as the film stage for the Berlinale 2008

In 2012, the Urania Berlin e. V. over 2000 members. It is mainly funded by its members, including large companies, universities and scientific institutes. Around 20 employees plan and implement the various programs. A board of trustees , including the presidents of the Berlin universities, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the Helmholtz Association , has an advisory role.

Events are offered for visitors of all ages. The program includes easily understandable lectures on current issues in the natural sciences and humanities, panel discussions and artistic performances, conferences, congresses and trade fairs. With two modern cinema halls, the Urania-Haus in Berlin-Schöneberg is one of the largest art house cinemas in Berlin. In the foyers , exhibitions on changing topics are shown. Around 200,000 visitors annually take part in the around 1,300 events.

Urania medal

The Urania Medal was awarded for the first time in 1988 to mark the centenary of Urania.

Prize winners:

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Urania  - Collection of Images
Wikisource: The Urania, Journal Article (1888)  - Sources and Full Texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl-Eugen Kurrer : 125 years of Urania. momentum magazine, accessed on July 15, 2020 .
  2. ↑ urania-stassfurt.de
  3. ↑ wfs.be.schule.de ( Memento from February 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ A Brief History of Berlin Astronomy and the Wilhelm Foerster Observatory. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on May 25, 2009 ; Retrieved April 24, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wfs.be.schule.de
  5. ↑ Internet presence (see web links)
  6. ↑ urania.de
  7. ^ Rescue of honor for Urania

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 5 ″  N , 13 ° 20 ′ 53 ″  E