The Grassi Museum is a building complex in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

, home to three museums: the

Ethnography Museum Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

, Musical Instruments Museum, and Applied Arts Museum. It is sometimes known as the "Museums in the Grassi", or as the "New" Grassi Museum (to distinguish it from the older building with this name, now home to the municipal library).

Origins

The museum is named after

Franz Dominic Grassi Franz Dominic Grassi (* 11 May 1801 in Leipzig; † 14 November 1880 Leipzig) was a merchant in Leipzig with Italian ancestry family. Through his extensive heritage to the city, it was possible to construct numerous monuments and buildings. Li ...

, a Leipzig businessman of Italian descent, who bequeathed over two million

marks Marks may refer to: Business * Mark's, a Canadian retail chain * Marks & Spencer, a British retail chain * Collective trade marks, trademarks owned by an organisation for the benefit of its members * Marks & Co, the inspiration for the novel '' ...

to the city upon his death in 1880.Leipzigs "Grassi" erwacht in neuem Glanz
Dankwart Guratzsch, ''

Die Welt ''Die Welt'' ("The World") is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. ''Die Welt'' is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the ''Frankfurter Allg ...

'', 3 December 2007. Retrieved 5 September 2010. This helped pay for a number of new constructions, including the

Gewandhaus Gewandhaus is a concert hall in Leipzig, the home of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Today's hall is the third to bear this name; like the second, it is noted for its fine acoustics. History The first Gewandhaus (''Altes Gewandhaus'') The fi ...

and the Mende Fountain, as well as the "Old Grassi Museum". Built from 1892-95 on the Königsplatz (now Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz), this originally housed the Museum of Ethnography and the Museum of Arts and Crafts, and is now the municipal library.

New building

The old museum became too small for the collections, prompting its director to call for an architecture competition to design a new building, to be paid for with the Grassi bequest. The winning firm designed a building with elements of

New Objectivity The New Objectivity (in german: Neue Sachlichkeit) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle'' in Mannheim, who ...

and

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

, based around several courtyards. It was built from 1925-29 (one of the few new museums of the

Weimar Era The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is als ...

), on the site of the old Johannis Hospital. The urban planner Hubert Ritter had intended for it to be the starting point of an eastward expansion of the city. It contained originally the Johannis Church, demolished in 1963.Aus der Versenkung ans Licht: Eröffnung des Grassi-Museums für angewandte Kunst in Leipzig
Hubertus Adam, ''

Neue Zürcher Zeitung The ''Neue Zürcher Zeitung'' (''NZZ''; "New Journal of Zürich") is a Swiss, German-language daily newspaper, published by NZZ Mediengruppe in Zürich. The paper was founded in 1780. It was described as having a reputation as a high-quality ne ...

'', 1 December 2007. Retrieved 5 September 2010. The New Grassi Museum was severely bombed in 1943, with the loss of tens of thousands of items. Rebuilding began in 1947, with the first exhibitions in 1954. It was closed from 1981-85 due to a problem with the heating system. It was completely renovated from 2001-05, including the removal of some of the front windows. It reopened partly in 2005, though the Museum of Applied Arts did not reopen until 2007. It is a historically preserved building, and is one of around 20 so-called "Cultural Lighthouses" in the German government's Blue Book of culturally significant sites in the former

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

. As such, it is a member of the

Konferenz Nationaler Kultureinrichtungen The Konferenz Nationaler Kultureinrichtungen (KNK) or Conference of National Cultural Institutions is a union of more than twenty cultural organizations in the former East Germany. It was established in 2002 in Halle. It includes the following o ...

.Kultur in Leipzig und Naumburg

German government The Federal Cabinet or Federal Government (german: link=no, Bundeskabinett or ') is the chief executive body of the Federal Republic of Germany. It consists of the Federal Chancellor and cabinet ministers. The fundamentals of the cabinet's or ...

, 4 September 2008. Retrieved 5 September 2010.

Trade fair

The Grassi Museum hosts an annual

trade fair A trade fair, also known as trade show, trade exhibition, or trade exposition, is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products and services, meet with industry partners and c ...

in October, the Grassimesse, whose origins go back to 1920.

Notes

External links

The Grassi Museum

Andreas Platthaus, ''

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' (; ''FAZ''; "''Frankfurt General Newspaper''") is a centre-right conservative-liberal and liberal-conservativeHans Magnus Enzensberger: Alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen' (in German). ''Deutschland Radio'', ...

'', 30 November 2007. Retrieved 10 October 2010.
Akrobaten, Drachen und Pagoden: Die Chinoiserien in Leipzigs Grassimuseum
Carola Nathan, ''Monumente-Online'', June 2007. Retrieved 5 September 2010. {{Authority control Museums established in 1929 Museums in Leipzig University museums in Germany Leipzig University