Location: Kirchplatz 6
Tel. +49 0921/ 764 0111
Open: 10am- 5pm Tue- Sun Sept- June
10am- 5pm July- Aug
The Bayreuth Historical Museum, initially called the "City Museum", is the oldest museum in the Upper Franconian city of Bayreuth. It has an eventful history, the goal of which was to preserve and make public local and regional cultural assets by citizens interested in culture in cooperation with the city administration. In 1997 it was awarded the Bavarian Museum Prize.
The founding of the Bayreuth Historical Museum is based
on the minutes of a meeting of the "Magistrate of the royal district
capital of Bayreuth" on December 5, 1894. This was preceded by a
memorandum by Bayreuth citizens and associations. A museum fund was
set up and bequests and donations allowed the historical holdings,
for which a depot was set up in 1912, to grow; from 1924 the
treasures in the rooms of the New Castle were made accessible to the
public.
The Second World War and looting after the end of the
war in 1945 caused irreparable losses. In 1960, the museum in the
east wing of the New Palace was reopened under the supervision of
the architect Hermann Rothenbücher. From 1964, librarian Wilhelm
Müller presented the historical material in a new way, followed by
historian Sylvia Habermann from 1981, both of whom also successively
managed the city archive. Under Sylvia Habermann, the museum was
expanded with further achievements until 2017. This includes the
important Otto Burkhardt private collection (permanent loan) of
faience from the porcelain manufactory founded in 1715 in Sankt
Georgen, a district of Bayreuth since 1811.
Over the years it
has been shown time and again that the historical treasures were
still insufficient or that many things were only housed in the
depot. Therefore, at the end of 1984, an association of “Friends of
the City Museum” (later “Friends of the Historical Museum”) was
founded, which soon had around 600 members. When the Bayreuth city
council decided to consider the premises of the old Latin school
next to the town church for the final accommodation, the museum
temporarily moved to the Lüchauhaus on Kanzleistrasse. Used as a
fire station until November 1988, the old historic building of the
Latin school, from which two bronze styli from the 12th/14th Century
belong to the exhibition, are extensively renovated. In 1996 the
time had come; the museum was opened there under the direction of
Sylvia Habermann and in 34 exhibition rooms on 1200 square meters on
three floors, diverse aspects of the more than 800-year history of
Bayreuth, including the important part of the history of the
Margraves of Brandenburg, could be presented.
Just one year
after the reopening, the (now:) "Historical" Museum Bayreuth
received the Bavarian Museum Prize (1997). In the years that
followed, Sylvia Habermann “successively reviewed the inventory in
over 90 special exhibitions and made it accessible to visitors from
different perspectives” (M. Ruppert). In the meantime, the premises
and their content have received further growth.
The history and development of Bayreuth from the late Middle Ages to
the 20th century is shown on the ground floor of the museum, and
there is also a model of the city as it looked in 1763. The first
floor is dedicated to the art and cultural history of the margrave
period of the 17th and 18th centuries. B. heard an elaborately
decorated sedan chair from the 18th century. In addition to the
faience collection (see above), handicrafts from Bayreuth and the
surrounding area, products from the glassworks in the Fichtelgebirge
and stoneware potters from Creußen, as well as paintings,
handicrafts and early industrial products from the Biedermeier
period and the late 19th century are on display on the upper floors.
These include musical instruments such as a clavichord by Christian
Gottlob Hubert (1756) or a 7-key maple flute by the Bayreuth
instrument maker Johann Simon Stengel (~1830).
A special
rarity is the self-portrait of the court painter Heinrich Bollandt
(1578-1653) and his portraits of the margrave family from the 17th
century – permanent loans from the historical chancellery library at
the University of Bayreuth.