Former name | Großherzoglich Hessisches Landesmuseum zu Darmstadt [1] |
---|---|
Established | 12 July 1820 |
Location | Friedensplatz 1, Darmstadt, Germany |
Coordinates | 49°52′30″N8°39′13″E / 49.8749°N 8.6535°E |
Type | Multidisciplinary museum |
Key holdings | Drawings Dürer/Rembrandt, Block Beuys, A Forest of Sculptures, Messel pit fossils, American mastodon |
Collections | Paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings, geology, paleontology, zoology, cultural history |
Collection size |
|
Visitors | c. 80,000 |
Founder | Louis I, Grand Duke of Hesse |
Director | Martin Faass |
Architects |
|
Owner | Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts |
Employees | 83 (2014) [3] |
Public transit access | Tram, bus: Schloss, Luisenplatz |
Nearest car park | Schlossgarage |
Website | www.hlmd.de |
Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt (HLMD) is a large multidisciplinary museum in Darmstadt, Germany. The museum exhibits Rembrandt, Beuys, a primeval horse and a mastodon under the slogan "The whole world under one roof". [4] [5] As one of the oldest public museums in Germany, it has c. 80,000 visitors every year and a collection size of 1.35 million objects. [5] [6] Since 2019, Martin Faass has been director of the museum. [7] [8] It is one of the three Hessian State museums, in addition to the museums in Kassel and Wiesbaden. [9] Similar institutions in Europe are the Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. [5]
Art and natural history collections of the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt have been established since the 17th century. [10] The museum was founded on 12 July 1820 [11] with the donation of the collections of Louis I, Grand Duke of Hesse. [12] Initially located in the Baroque part of the Residential Palace Darmstadt, [13] the museum moved in 1906 to a nearby new building. [5] In 1937, 82 works of Modern art were confiscated during the Degenerate art campaign. [14] [15] [16] In the Brandnacht (fire night) on 11 to 12 September 1944 the museum building was partly destroyed; [17] [18] [19] it was reconstructed and reopened in 1955. [12] [20]
The main building was begun in 1897 by Alfred Messel and inaugurated in 1906. [20] [2] [21] The encyclopedic museum [22] consists of several period rooms or experience spaces, [23] a monumental entrance hall with the staircase in Palladian architecture, a Pompeian style wing (509 BC – 400 AD) for the ancient art (including Roman courtyard and Oceanus mosaic), [24] [25] Romanesque corridors and chapels (900–1300) for the medieval treasure art, a Late Gothic hall (1350–1500) for the historical weapons, the Italian Renaissance Chiavenna room (c. 1580) for the Princely Treasury and corresponding open courtyards. [26] The large east-wing Baroque hall Großer Saal with an imposing barrel vault is used for special exhibitions. [27] This asymmetric agglomeration of architectural styles, according to the design philosophy "Form follows function", [11] is embedded in a rather rigid grid. [28] The south-east tower, containing the library, [13] is based on the tower of an 18th century Baroque plan for the Residential Palace Darmstadt by Louis Remy de la Fosse, [29] that was realized only partly. [30]
Source: [31]
The museum is located between Residential Palace Darmstadt and the urban park Herrngarten . [2] Nearby are the neoclassical former court theatre Haus der Geschichte Darmstadt (House of History) by Georg Moller, [32] the squares Friedensplatz and Karolinenplatz , as well as the street Zeughausstraße (Cityring). [33] [34]
A large extension on the west side of the main building was designed by Reinhold Kargel, [35] completed in 1984. [20] [21] As of 2023 [update] , the controversial, [23] confusing [36] modern building extension houses the painting gallery with 400 paintings. [37] [38] After major €80 million renovations [22] from 2007 onwards, it reopened on 13 September 2014. [17] [2] About 100,000 exhibits are displayed on 9,000 m2 (97,000 sq ft) of exhibition space; the complete floor area is 12,000 m2 (130,000 sq ft). [39] In its high-rise north wing, the museum houses the Art Nouveau/prehistory and early history, zoology/handicrafts, geology and modern/contemporary arts collections on floors one above the other. [21] [40] Cultural history is presented in the lower south wing. [40]
The museum is especially noted for its art collection, including Pieter Brueghel the Elder's The Magpie on the Gallows , and one of the plaques from the Magdeburg Ivories (c. 968). [41] There are also strong collections of Art Nouveau objects from several countries, [42] and German, Dutch and Flemish paintings. [43] Basis of the graphic collection are the works by Dürer and Rembrandt, bought by museum founder Louis I, Grand Duke of Hesse in 1803. [10] Interested visitors can request original prints and drawings in the study room. [44]
It also features an important natural history collection, with for instance fossils from the nearby Messel pit [45] [46] and a historic American mastodon skeleton ("Peale's mastodon") [47] purchased by the Darmstadt naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup. [48] [49] Also notable are the reconstructions of eleven hominid busts [50] and ten large-scale habitat dioramas. [26] [51] [52]
The Simon Spierer Collection A Forest of Sculptures includes works of well-known international artists of the 20th century from Early Modern to Contemporary art, like Constantin Brâncuși, Alberto Giacometti, Max Ernst, Henry Moore, Tony Cragg, [53] Hans Arp, Barbara Hepworth. [54] [55] Spierer donated the sculpture collection in 2004. [56] Stele and Torso are the predominant motifs. [56]
The museum owns 290 objects by Joseph Beuys in seven rooms ("Block Beuys "), [5] [57] [58] the world's largest complex of his works. [56] Key works of the 1970 installation are expansive felt objects (1964–67), Fond III (layered felt and copper, 1969), [59] Scenes from the Deer Hunt (big closet with compartments filled with many small objects, 1961) [60] and Chair with Fat (1963). [61] [62] Beuys worked on the installation until his death in 1986. [63] Richard Rijnvos wrote music to each of the seven rooms. [64] [65]
The museum regularly hosts temporary special exhibitions at Großer Saal. [66]
August Bodo Wilhelm Clemens Paul von Trott zu Solz was a German politician.
The Messel pit is a disused quarry near the village of Messel about 35 km (22 mi) southeast of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Bituminous shale was mined there. Because of its abundance of well-preserved fossils dating from the middle of the Eocene, it has significant geological and scientific importance. Over 1000 species of plants and animals have been found at the site. After almost becoming a landfill, strong local resistance eventually stopped these plans and the Messel pit was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 9 December 1995. Significant scientific discoveries about the early evolution of mammals and birds are still being made at the Messel pit, and the site has increasingly become a tourist site as well.
Breuberg is a town in the Odenwaldkreis district of Hesse, Germany. It is 28 km east of Darmstadt and 20 km southwest of Aschaffenburg.
The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine was a Grand duchy in western Germany that existed from 1806 to 1918. The grand duchy originally formed from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1806 as the Grand Duchy of Hesse. It assumed the name Hesse und bei Rhein in 1816 to distinguish itself from the Electorate of Hesse, which had formed from neighbouring Hesse-Kassel. Colloquially, the grand duchy continued to be known by its former name of Hesse-Darmstadt.
Imi Knoebel is a German artist. Knoebel is known for his minimalist, abstract painting and sculpture. The "Messerschnitt" or "knife cuts," is a recurring technique he employs, along with his regular use of the primary colors, red, yellow and blue. Knoebel lives and works in Düsseldorf.
The Lohra tomb was a megalithic monument outside Lohra near Marburg in north central Hesse, Germany. It is one of the lesser known among its type in Central Europe. It dates to the late Neolithic, probably just after 3000 BC. It belongs to the gallery graves of the Wartberg culture, but is unique among them because of its rich ceramic assemblage.
The Royal Prussian and Grand-Ducal Hessian State Railways was a state-owned network of independent railway divisions in the German states of Prussia and Hesse in the early 20th century. It was not, as sometimes maintained, a single state railway company.
Rainer Fetting is a German painter and sculptor.
Peter Angermann is a German painter based in Nuremberg.
Friedrich Ludwig Weidig was a German Protestant theologian, pastor, activist, teacher and journalist. Initially working as a teacher in Butzbach, he then spent a short time as a pastor in Ober-Gleen, a district of Giessen. In what is now Hesse and the Middle Rhine, he was one of the main figures of the Vormärz and a pioneer of the 1848 Revolution.
Count Johann Reinhard II of Hanau-Lichtenberg was a younger son of Count Philipp Wolfgang of Hanau-Lichtenberg (1595–1641) and Countess Johanna of Oettingen-Oettingen.
Group Normal is a German Czech group of artists formed in 1979.
Jörg Madlener is a German painter, engraver and stage designer.
The Residential Palace Darmstadt is the former residence and administrative seat of the landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt and from 1806 to 1919 of the Grand Dukes of Hesse-Darmstadt. It is located in the centre of the city of Darmstadt. The palace consists of an older Renaissance part and an 18th century Baroque part.
Gerhard Menk was a German historian and archivist.
Friedrich Uhlhorn was an honorary professor at the Philipps-Universität Marburg, whose scientific focus was on the history of the State of Hesse and was also known for his work outside Hesse. His special scientific interest was mainly focused on the problems of historical cartography. In collaboration with Edmund Ernst Stengel, he published the Geschichtlichen Atlas von Hessen, which is considered his major work. He also wrote the article Die deutschen Territorien. A: The West, which deals with the West German regional history. Likewise he was responsible as editor for the Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte by Bruno Gebhardt.
Johann PeterBoßler [ˈbɔslɐ] also written Bossler and Bosler was a German master gunsmith and hunting arms manufacturer. He was in the service of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt and is considered an outstanding figure in the history of hunting in Hesse-Darmstadt.
Friedrich Jacob Boßler [ˈbɔslɐ] also written Bossler and Bosler were a German master gunsmith and airgun maker of the 18th century.