The Museum of Applied Arts (german: Museum für Angewandte Kunst) is a museum 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 ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It is the second oldest museum of

decorative arts ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...

in the country,Grassi-Museum: Der ganze Reichtum unseres Kontinents
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. founded just six years after the

Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin __NOTOC__ The Kunstgewerbemuseum, or Museum of Decorative Arts, is an internationally important museum of the decorative arts in Berlin, Germany, part of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums). The collection is split between the ...

. Today it is part of the

Grassi Museum The Grassi Museum is a building complex in Leipzig, home to three museums: the Ethnography Museum, Musical Instruments Museum, and Applied Arts Museum. It is sometimes known as the "Museums in the Grassi", or as the "New" Grassi Museum (to di ...

, an institution which also includes the Museum of Ethnography and the Museum of Musical Instruments, based in a large building on the Johannisplatz.

Collections

The museum owns around 90,000 items, of European and non-European origin, featuring decorative art from all eras since antiquity. The collection is particularly strong on exhibits from the 1920s and '30s. The items include ceramics, textiles, glassware, metalwork, sculpture, furniture and coinage.Collections Overview
. More than 2,000 items are on permanent display,The Grassi museums

Rough Guides Rough Guides Ltd is a British travel guide book and reference publisher, which has been owned by APA Publications since November 2017. In addition to publishing guidebooks, the company also provides a tailor-made trips service based on customer ...

. currently split between two exhibitions: "From Antiquity to Historism" and "Asian Art". A third exhibition, "From Art Nouveau to the Present Day", is scheduled to open in late 2011.Permanent Exhibition
. There are also special temporary exhibitions. One highlight of the museum is the "Roman Hall", with panels salvaged from a palace in Eythra, near Leipzig, which was demolished to make way for coal mining. There is also a

graphics Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture ...

collection with over 50,000 works, a photographic archive of 75,000 items, and a library with around 60,000 titles.

History

The museum was founded in 1874 as the ''Kunstgewerbemuseum'' (Museum of Arts and Crafts). It moved into its present location, the New Grassi Building, in 1926. Numerous exhibits were destroyed by bombs during World War II.Facts and Figures
. Between 1981 and 1994, no permanent exhibition was possible because of damage to the building. The Grassi Museum was refurbished from 2001 to 2006. The Museum of Applied Arts received its present name in 2005, and the new permanent exhibition opened in 2007. The museum 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 org ...

.Mitglieder

Notes

External links

Home page in English
{{authority control Art museums established in 1874 Decorative arts museums in Germany Museums in Leipzig 1874 establishments in Germany