Museumgasse 1- 5
Tel. (02682) 600 1234
Open: 9am- 5pm Tue- Sat, 10am- 5pm Sun
Burgenlandisches Landesmuseum is a museum that holds a collection of objects and items dedicated to the art and history of Burgenland province of Austria. Its collection include on the one hand the natural history as geology and biology of the country and on the other hand the effect of man with archeology, art, culture, folklore, economic and contemporary history. Some of the artefacts date back to the Ice Age. It is followed by archaeological finds from the Hallstatt and Ancient Roman cultures that once lived here.
After Burgenland had come to Austria as the ninth state in 1921, the wine merchant Sándor Wolf from Eisenstadt set up a state museum to represent the identity of the new federal state. He became the founding director, but had to leave Austria after the "Anschluss", when Adolf Hitler took over Austria. His collection was "Aryanized" but restituted after the war. A part with archeological artifacts could be acquired again in 1958 at an auction and are still part of the collection.
The museum was in the Leinnerhaus from 1926 to 1938, owned by the wine merchant family Leopold Wolf's sons. In Museumsgasse 1 to 11, where the Burgenland National Museum was founded from 1938 to 1939, houses from the 17th to 19th centuries stood and stand. On No. 5 is the house Sándor Wolfs, a group of buildings with different style elements and remarkable wrought iron work. Wolf had already built a collection of antiquities here that is owned by the Landesmuseum. The houses nos. 9 and 11 were demolished in 1968, the museum was expanded with a modern addition to the plans of the architects Hans Puchhammer and Gunther Wawrik and opened in 1976.
On three floors of the museum, exhibits are
presented that tell about the history and culture of this Austrian
land from ancient times to the present day.
The exhibition on
the ground floor is called Lebensbilder, which literally means
"pictures of life", and consists of numerous works by local artists,
reflecting the main historical moments of the region.
The
second floor is called Lebensroyme, which means "spaces of life".
Here music helps to make an excursion into history. Visitors are
offered special turntables with headphones, since each exhibition -
from the exhibition of fossils of ancient animals to the composition
representing the modern Neusiedlersee-Seewinkel National Park - is
dedicated to a separate melody.
The cellar, called
Lebenspuren - "traces of life", tells the history of Burgenland from
the 6th century BC to the end of the Roman era. A separate room is
dedicated to the so-called Roman Amber Route - one of the most
important trade routes of antiquity, which allowed the Romans to get
to the lower reaches of the Danube, bypassing the hard-to-reach
Alpine passes.
Every day, the museum conducts special
excursions for young visitors, during which they can not only get
acquainted with the local history, but also literally touch it with
their hands: try to assemble a jug from clay fragments, touch the
piano keys of the century before last, read a newspaper from the
times of the First world war.