Volkshaus Jena

Volkshaus 1990

The Volkshaus in Jena was one of the first independent educational institutions in Germany to be set up based on the North American model .

history

It was built by Arwed Roßbach with funds from the Carl Zeiss Foundation and opened in 1903 . Supported by the physicists Ernst Abbe and Siegfried Czapski, who worked at Zeiss, as well as the publisher Eugen Diederichs , the drawing school of the painter Erich Kuithan existed here from 1903 to 1908 . In 1907, the Jenaer Volksverein showed a selection from the 1st Graphic Exhibition of the German Association of Artists in Leipzig in the Volkshaus .

In January 1919, the Reichstag director and a privy councilor explored possible conference locations for the National Assembly to be elected - in addition to Bayreuth, Nuremberg and the Weimar Court Theater , the Volkshaus Jena as well. The election on January 14, 1919 fell on Weimar.

From June 1922 to October 1924 the Volkshaus Jena hosted the first exhibition of optical devices, which can now be seen in the neighboring Optical Museum .

Today it is owned by the Ernst Abbe Foundation . In the Volkshaus Jena there are (or were) lecture halls and concert halls, a library, an independent drawing school and the headquarters of the Jena Art Association .

In 1987, a Sauer organ was installed in the Great Hall to replace the old organ that was inaugurated in 1906 by Thomas organist Karl Straube . With its 4,800 organ pipes it is one of the largest new organs in Thuringia, has 61 registers and a movable console. The cost of the organ was 1.5 million GDR marks, paid for by VEB Carl Zeiss Jena . It was largely planned by organ expert and organist Hartmut Haupt .

Today the Volkshaus is mainly used as a meeting place with its own program of events; there are also rooms for the Ernst Abbe library and the Jena Philharmonic as well as various associations.

literature

Birgit Liebold, Margret Franz (ed.): Volkshaus Jena. Attempt a chronicle. 1903-2003, 100 years . Bussert & Stadeler Verlag, Jena and Quedlinburg 2003, ISBN 3-932906-44-6 .