Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich
| Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich | |
|---|---|
 Building of the Ethnographic Museum |
|
| Data | |
| place | Pelikanstrasse 40 8001 Zurich Switzerland 
|
| opening | 1889 |
| operator | University of Zurich |
| management | Mareile Flitsch |
| GLAM | CH-001625 |
| ISIL | CH-001922 |
| KGS | 8539 |
| Website | www.musethno.uzh.ch |
The Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich is the third oldest ethnological museum in Switzerland . Its collections have belonged to the University of Zurich since 1914 . Collection care, research, teaching and public relations (exhibiting, publishing, organizing events) are the main areas of activity that are maintained at the Völkerkundemuseum.
Location and building
The ethnological museum is located in Zurich ( Quartier City , Kreis 1 ) on the site of the old botanical garden "zur Katz" .
The building, which dates from 1864, was built and added on several times. Until 1977 it served the University of Zurich as a collection building, greenhouse and management floor of the Botanical Institute, of which elements such as the library still retain their greenhouse character. The architects Hubacher, Issler and Partner, Zurich, carried out the conversion to the Ethnographic Museum by 1980; The architects Diethelm, St. Gallen, made more recent adjustments in 2014. Today the complex includes storage facilities, photo, graphic and restoration studios, archive rooms, library, office wing, seminar room, lecture hall (which also serves as an event location), reception and three exhibition rooms with a total of almost 700 m² of exhibition space.
history
In 1889, the Zurich Ethnographic Collection was opened to the public for the first time in the old stock exchange building on the corner of Talstrasse and Börsenstrasse. Initially managed privately by the Ethnographic Society Zurich (since 1899 Geographisch-Ethnographische Gesellschaft Zurich, GEGZ), a connection to the university was sought, which was approved at the end of 1913 and completed by the end of 1916 with the move into the new main building of the University of Zurich. The university collection was accessible on the 2nd floor of the university building until 1979. As early as 1972, in the course of the establishment of the subject of ethnology in Zurich, the "Ethnological Collection" switched from the natural sciences to the philosophy faculty and was renamed the "Ethnological Museum of the University of Zurich". In 1980 the move to the new location, the Old Botanical Garden, took place.
Management times:
- 1888–1899: Otto Stoll (1849–1922)
- 1899–1911: Rudolf Martin (1864–1925)
- 1911–1941: Hans J. Wehrli (1871–1945)
- 1941–1963: Alfred Steinmann (1892–1974)
- 1963–1990: Karl H. Henking (1923–2005)
- 1991–2008: Michael Oppitz (* 1942)
- since 2008: Mareile Flitsch (* 1960)
collection
The collection, made accessible in the form of temporary exhibitions, currently comprises more than 40,000 items from various subject areas. The focus is on material evidence from the religious context (ritual devices and iconography of Hinduism , Buddhism , Christianity and Islam and various ethnic religions in Asia, Indonesia, Australia, Oceania, America and Africa) and objects that have a special manufacturing and practical knowledge Preserve (textiles, wickerwork, ceramics, wood carving, forged and cast metal objects).
The focus of the collection is geographical
- Africa : West and Central Africa , Ethiopia
- Asia : Himalayan countries , especially China (including Tibet ), India (including Northeast India ) and Southeast Asia with a focus on Indonesia
- Oceania with a focus on Melanesia
- Australia
- South America : Amazonia and Andean regions as well as parts of Mesoamerica
- North America : Great Plains
- Polar regions
The museum also houses a collection for visual anthropology with around 40,000 historical photographs, a video and film archive with around 2,400 titles, a sound archive that was able to take over most of the sound carrier collection from the former music ethnology archive of the University of Zurich, and one of the collections and the archives relating to the house.
Exhibitions
Every year, three to four temporary exhibitions are opened at the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich, some of which are mentioned here:
- Kali - Visions of the Black Mother (1993/94)
- African art from the Han Coray Collection 1916–1928 (1995/96)
- Naxi - things. Myths. Pictograms (1997/98)
- Bedouins in the Negev - From the tent to the house (1998/99)
- Exotic currencies (2000)
- Embroidered Prayers - from Hazarajat , Afghanistan (2000)
- The moon as a shoe. Drawings of the San (2002/03)
- Tiger people - On the tiger transformation of the Khasi in northeast India (2003)
- upright, flexible, empty - bamboo in ancient Japan (2003/04)
- Vessels for the sacred - Indian objects speak of religion (2004)
- Splendor and splendor at the court of Menilek (2004/05)
- Maya textiles from Guatemala - 'clothes for the soul' (2006/07)
- Drums of the Shamans (2007/08)
- Naga - jewelry and ashes (2008/09)
- Crazy! China potters close to the ground (2010/11)
- Insightful Borneo (2011)
- Drinking culture - cult drink . Milk , cassava beer , kawa , palm wine , tea , rice beer (2014/15)
- Encounter - Trace - Map: The Expedition Collections of Heinrich Harrer (2018/19)
- Map - Trace - Encounter: The Tibet Collections of Heinrich Harrer and Peter Aufschnaiter (2018/19)
Library
The ethnographic specialist library currently contains over 35,000 works, several dozen specialist journals and reference works. The titles are available online and the books (apart from a few rarities) can be borrowed to take home. A reading room with 20 workstations is available for readers and students. The rarity and the video and film documents that cannot be borrowed can be viewed here.
literature
- Peter Gerber et al. Katharina Haslwanter u. Andreas Isler: Faces of a Museum. 125 years of the Zurich Ethnographic Collection . Ethnological Museum of the University of Zurich 2014.
- Karl Henking: The Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich: History and Outlook . Zurich 1980.
- Verena Münzer and Peter R. Gerber: 100 years of the Völkerkundemuseum: 1889–1989 . Zurich 1989.
- Verena Münzer: The Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich 1889–1989. In: Geographica Helvetica , vol. 44, no.3 1989.
- Miklós Szalay, u. a .: The Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich: An overview . Ethnological Museum of the University of Zurich 1972.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ See report by the architects, in: Völkerkundemuseum der Universität Zürich . Directorate of Public Works / Directorate of Education. Zurich 1980, pp. 19–31.
- ↑ Verena Münzer and Peter R. Gerber: 100 Years of the Völkerkundemuseum: 1889–1989 . Zurich 1989, pp. 11-76.
- ↑ Online research: http://www.musethno.uzh.ch/bibliothek/recherche/film.html
- ↑ See the list of current and the archive of past exhibitions: http://www.musethno.uzh.ch/ausstellungen.html
- ↑ via the research portal of the libraries of the University of Zurich: http://www.recherche-portal.ch/