Badisches Landesmuseum

About

The Baden State Museum (German: Badisches Landesmuseum) in Karlsruhe is the large cultural, art and regional history museum of the Baden region of Baden-Württemberg . With its globally significant collections, representing more than 50,000 years of international cultural history, it conveys history and historical living environments. Its collections range from prehistory and early history to the Middle Ages and the 21st century. The museum was founded in 1919 and opened in 1921 in the rooms of Karlsruhe Palace.

In 1873, Frederick I. had a Collection Building built on Friedrichsplatz for his library and his extensive collections. Here they were open to the public as the Grand Ducal Collection of Antiquities and Ethnology in Karlsruhe. After the Abdication of the Grand Duke of Baden Frederick II., the Karlsruhe Palace, located in the center of the baroque city complex, was taken over by the Baden state in 1918 and designated as the seat of a newly founded cultural history museum. The museum was founded in 1919 and was created by merging the "antiquities collection" with the Baden Museum of Decorative Arts. It was opened on 24 July 1921 in the rooms of the palace. Hans Rott was the first director until 1938. In 1936, the ‘Baden coin collection‘(Badisches Münzkabinett) was incorporated into the museum. The director was Friedrich Wielandt until 1971. Karlsruhe Palace was destroyed in 1944 during the Second World War. Most of the museum's holdings were saved. Reconstruction of the burnt-out palace began in 1955. The exterior was faithfully reconstructed, while the interior was designed to meet the requirements of a modern museum. The Baden State Museum was reopened in 1959 and the castle café opened in 1965. Jürgen Thimme was the first archaeologist to head the antiquities department from 1959 to 1982. From 1992, under the direction of Harald Siebenmorgen, all fifteen departments of the Baden State Museum were successively completely refurnished according to a concept based on contextualization and staging of the objects, most recently the "World Culture" department in 2013. All departments were made accessible through collection guides. From 1992, large museum festivals were organized, and the Baden State Museum was opened to a wide audience through numerous other museum education and cultural mediation measures. A high-calibre and closely timed special exhibition program, which was partly based on the newly concluded cooperation agreements with Tunisia, Algeria and other Mediterranean countries, attracted international attention. The number of visitors quadrupled. In 2009, the Baden State Museum Karlsruhe had around 300,000 visitors. As a pilot project, the Baden State Museum was the first museum in Baden-Württemberg to introduce a business management structure with a commercial directorate, thus gaining new scope for action. In 2014, the German Museum of Music Automatons in Bruchsal and the museum in Salem were opened with new concepts.

At the end of April 2017, a diadem of Grand Duchess Hilda of Baden made of gold and platinum by the Baden court jeweler Schmidt-Staub around 1907 and set with 367 diamonds was stolen from a display case in the throne room on the second floor of the museum. As it became known in June 2017, a theft had already taken place in October 2016. It was an ivory sculpture from 1620 worth 500,000 euros by the sculptor Leonhard Kern. It shows the Roman woman Fulvia with the severed head of Cicero. The public prosecutor saw no connection between the two incidents. In 2019, the museum celebrated its 100th anniversary with a large museum festival. From 2027, the museum in Karlsruhe Palace will be closed for several years due to a general refurbishment. This is necessary as much of the building technology dates back to the 1960s.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.