The Focke Museum is the museum of history and the history of art for the city and

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

. It was formed in 1924 by the merger of a museum of industry and commerce and the previous historical museum, and is named for the founder of the latter, Johann Focke (1848–1922), a Bremen privy councillor (german: Senatssyndikus) and father of

Henrich Focke Henrich Focke (8 October 1890 – 25 February 1979) was a German aviation pioneer from Bremen and also a co-founder of the Focke-Wulf company. He is best known as the inventor of the Fw 61, the first successful German helicopter. Biograp ...

. It is located in of grounds in the Riensberg neighbourhood of the city. In addition to a main building which opened in 1964 and was extended in 2002, the museum complex includes buildings dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

History

The museum is a merger of two institutions: a museum of industry and commerce (''Gewerbe-Museum'') which opened in 1884 and the former historical museum (''Historisches Museum für bremische Altertümer'') which was founded in 1900."Kurze Geschichte des Museums"
Focke Museum, retrieved 1 September 2014 The museum of industry and commerce developed out of the Technical Institute for the Trades (''Technische Anstalt für Gewerbetreibende''), an institution with the mission of instructing Bremen's craftsmen in historical styles and design. It was intended to provide them with a collection of examples from all areas of craftsmanship. In 1884, the entire institution was renamed the Gewerbe-Museum. Its first two directors, August Heinrich Töpfer (1872–1903) and Emil Högg (1867–1954) were architects and designers. The historical museum was founded by Johann Focke, initially as a private initiative. It opened in 1900 in the cloister and refectory of the former Monastery of St. Katherine in the centre of Bremen, with a collection of exhibits related to the history of the city which Focke had been assembling since 1880. Gifts from residents caused the collection to outgrow the available space, and in 1905 it was moved to an annexe of the

Bremen Cathedral Bremen Cathedral (german: Bremer Dom or St. Petri Dom zu Bremen), dedicated to St. Peter, is a church situated in the Bremer Marktplatz, market square in the center of Bremen (city), Bremen. The cathedral belongs to the Evangelical Church of Breme ...

and then in 1913 to a

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

building which had been an old people's home, in Großenstraße in the Stephaniviertel neighbourhood on the far west of the old city. It was renamed to the Focke Museum of Bremen Antiquities (''Focke-Museum für bremische Altertümer'') on the occasion of Focke's 70th birthday in 1918. Combining the two museums was discussed for many years and finally occurred in 1924, with Ernst Grohne becoming president. The combined institution opened in 1927 in Großenstraße; it included an exposition of the history of Bremen and also emphasised regional styles in the crafts and styles departments. For the first time pre-historic and early historical items were added; Grohne himself collected some of these on archaeological digs beginning in 1931. The museum closed on 10 October 1939, a few days after the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

; most of the collection was placed in storage and thus survived the war, but the building was totally destroyed by fire as a result of bombing. In the 1950s, the Focke-Garten park was created on the site. In 1953 the museum reopened in the 18th-century Haus Riensberg, the main house of the Riensberg estate, and in 1959 the foundation stone of a new building was laid: the first new building of any state museum in the Federal Republic since the war. Designed by Heinrich Bartmann and Reinhold Kargel of

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

, the new complex was dedicated in 1964. In classic modern style, respectfully integrated into the landscape and with ample use of glass to emphasise views from the inside out, this main building is now held to be one of Bremen's most outstanding 20th-century buildings. In 1974 the

Association of German Architects The Association of German Architects (German: ''Bund Deutscher Architekten'', BDA) is an association of architects founded in 1903 in Germany. It publishes the bimonthly magazine ''der architekt''. The BDA has over 5,000 members. In 1995, it fo ...

called it "one of the most beautiful museum facilities on the continent".

Directors

* 1924–1953: Ernst Grohne * 1953–1974: Werner Kloos * 1975–1990: Rosemarie Pohl-Weber * 1991–2008: Jörn Christiansen * April 2043to present: Frauke von der Haar

Current museum

In addition to Haus Riensberg and the main building, the museum complex now includes three other historic buildings and an extension built in 2002. The extensive park is also used for exhibits and events.

Main building

The 1964 building was modernised in 1996–98 and reopened with a new permanent exhibition on the history of Bremen, spanning over 1200 years from medieval archaeological finds to the rebuilding after the Second World War. Exhibits include the head of the

Bremen Roland The Bremen Roland is a statue of Roland, erected in 1404. It stands in the market square (''Rathausplatz'') of Bremen, Germany, facing the cathedral, and shows Roland, paladin of the first Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne and hero of the Battle ...

, sandstone statues from

Bremen Town Hall The Bremen City Hall (german: Bremer Rathaus) is the seat of the President of the Senate and Mayor of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. It is one of the most important examples of Brick Gothic and Weser Renaissance architecture in Europe. Si ...

, cars by

Borgward The former Borgward car manufacturing company, based in Bremen, Germany, was founded by Carl F. W. Borgward (1890–1963). It produced cars of four brands, which were sold to a diversified international customer base: Borgward, Hansa, Go ...

, machinery from the Koch & Bergfeld silverware company, models representing shipbuilding in the state in the 20th century, and also a curiosity: the Complimentarius, an automaton who used to greet people coming up the steps into the great hall of the Schütting.

Extension

The extension to the main building opened in 2002 and is known as the ''Schaumagazin'' (viewable storage). Designed by the Bremen architect Gert Schulze, it is in the form of a cube, clad in copper which gives it a green colour. Of the four storeys, one consists of space for special exhibitions and three are storage for the museum, two of which are open to visitors, adding of display space. It is connected to the main building by a glassed-walled passageway. Storehouses have been placed on view since the 16th century. However, the Focke Museum is the first institution in Europe to revive the idea in a long time. On these two floors, visitors can see items in the museum's collection that were previously hidden away; a wide variety of items are packed together much more closely than in display spaces.

Multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...

stations provide information, and there are also opportunities for play and for trying things out.

Lifeboat

The decommissioned

lifeboat Lifeboat may refer to: Rescue vessels * Lifeboat (shipboard), a small craft aboard a ship to allow for emergency escape * Lifeboat (rescue), a boat designed for sea rescues * Airborne lifeboat, an air-dropped boat used to save downed airmen A ...

'' Paul Denker'', the first all-aluminium craft built for the

German Maritime Search and Rescue Service The German Maritime Search and Rescue Service (german: Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Rettung Schiffbrüchiger - DGzRS, ; lit. ''German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked Persons'') is responsible for Search and Rescue in German territorial waters ...

, is on display in the courtyard between the main building and the extension. She was retired in July 2005.

Haus Riensberg

Haus Riensberg was built in the second half of the 18th century and was the main house of the Riensberg estate. It has been used by the museum since 1953 and was declared a protected landmark in 1973. It currently houses the museum's displays on residential life in Bremen, European glass and the children's museum and toy collection. The displays are especially rich in furniture of the 16th to the 20th centuries, including

Heinrich Vogeler Heinrich Vogeler (December 12, 1872 – June 14, 1942) was a German painter, designer, and architect, associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. Early life He was born in Bremen, and studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1 ...

's 1906 design for "a young lady's room", a masterwork of the German

Jugendstil ''Jugendstil'' ("Youth Style") was an artistic movement, particularly in the decorative arts, that was influential primarily in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent from about 1895 until about 1910. It was the German counterpart of ...

, and furniture by

Rudolf Alexander Schröder Rudolf Alexander Schröder (26 January 1878 – 22 August 1962) was a German translator and poet. In 1962 he was awarded the Johann-Heinrich-Voß-Preis für Übersetzung. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. Career Much o ...

. In the attic is the Studio Focke, an experimental space for children and teenagers.

Eichenhof

The Eichenhof is the former barn of the Riensberg estate. It is

thatched Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

with reeds and houses the department of pre-history and early history, covering the cultural development of the region from 350,000

BCE Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...

until the 8th century. Amongst other topics, displays cover

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...

farming cultures, archaeological finds resulting from excavating and gravel dredging in the

Weser The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports of Bre ...

, and

Bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

and

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

grave finds. There is a large amount of material related to the

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

period, with exhibits in particular from the

Migration Age The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...

and early medieval cemetery at Mahndorf. This building also includes a Renaissance bronze tournament helmet found in the

Lesum The Lesum is a river in northern Germany, right tributary of the Weser, navigable for Class III ships.Klöckner Stahl). The farmhouse was dismantled in 1961 and rebuilt on the museum grounds in 1964. It has been a protected landmark since 1973. The house is used to display information on the life and daily work of rural families in the Büren area, including house construction,

flax Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. Textiles made from flax are known in ...

preparation, seafaring and river fishing, as well as the movement of industry into rural areas.

Tarmstedt barn

The barn from a farm in

Tarmstedt Tarmstedt is a municipality in the district of Rotenburg in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approximately 25 km northwest of Rotenburg, and 25 km northeast of Bremen. History Tarmstedt belonged to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bre ...

was erected by Johann and Tebke Böschen in 1803, according to the inscription on it. It was moved to the museum grounds in 1973/74 and is used to display farm tools and exhibits relating to agriculture, including

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

dairy A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting or processing (or both) of animal milk – mostly from cows or buffaloes, but also from goats, sheep, horses, or camels – for human consumption. A dairy is typically located on ...

and arable farming,

beekeeping Beekeeping (or apiculture) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in man-made beehives. Honey bees in the genus '' Apis'' are the most-commonly-kept species but other honey-producing bees such as ''Melipona'' stingless bees are also kept. ...

haying Hay is grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, or for smaller domesticated ...

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficien ...

cutting, slaughtering and rural transport.

Park

The museum is set in of parkland, with the different buildings being connected by gardens with sculptures and

sundial A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a flat ...

s. The oldest elements in the park are four tall

lime tree ''Tilia'' is a genus of about 30 species of trees or bushes, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The tree is known as linden for the European species, and basswood for North American species. In Britain and Ireland they ...

s in front of Haus Riensberg which were probably planted when the house was remodelled in 1768, and a marble statue of the goddess

Terra Terra may often refer to: * Terra (mythology), primeval Roman goddess * An alternate name for planet Earth, as well as the Latin name for the planet Terra may also refer to: Geography Astronomy * Terra (satellite), a multi-national NASA scienti ...

which has been in the park since 1810. The park includes water features and both a botanical collection with many exotics and a farm garden at Haus Mittelsbüren displaying indigenous flowers and herbs. Open-air concerts are held in the park in summer.

Oberneuland Mill

The Oberneuland Mill, in the Oberneuland section of Bremen, is an external site belonging to the museum. It is a

smock mill The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded, thatched, or shingled tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind. This type ...

of the gallery type built in 1848, and has been a protected landmark since 1973. The mill has a permanent exhibit on the process of making bread from

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

and an educational programme.

Special exhibitions and events

The museum also offers special exhibitions on topics relating to the history of Bremen, crafts and design, and photography and other arts. For example, a 1987 exhibition of works by

Wilhelm Wagenfeld Wilhelm Wagenfeld (15 April 1900, Bremen, German Empire — 28 May 1990, Stuttgart, West Germany) was an important German industrial designer and former student of the Bauhaus art school. He designed glass and metal works for the Jenaer Glaswe ...

led to the creation of a foundation and a permanent exhibit elsewhere in Bremen, and there is a regular summer exhibition of photography, in 2010 of work by the photojournalist

Robert Lebeck Robert Lebeck (21 March 1929 – 14 June 2014) was an award-winning German photojournalist. Biography At the age of fifteen Lebeck was drafted into the Wehrmacht and sent to the Eastern Front where he was captured as a POW by the Soviet Army. ...

and in 2014 of 300 images by

Sebastião Salgado Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado Júnior (born February 8, 1944) is a Brazilian social documentary photographer and photojournalist. He has traveled in over 120 countries for his photographic projects. Most of these have appeared in numerous press pu ...

under the title ''Exodus''.Alexandra Albrecht
"Epos von Flucht und Vertreibung"
''Weser-Kurier'', 25 July 2014 Tours for varying age groups and lectures are held.

References

External links

*
Focke Museum
at Bremen Tourism {{Authority control Museums in Bremen (city) Museums established in 1924 1924 establishments in Germany