The Photothèque (officially Photothèque de la Ville de Luxembourg) in

Luxembourg City Luxembourg (; ; ), also known as Luxembourg City ( or ; ; or ), is the capital city of Luxembourg and the Communes of Luxembourg, country's most populous commune. Standing at the confluence of the Alzette and Pétrusse rivers in southern Luxe ...

in the

Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembourg ...

houses several large collections of photographs of the city taken between 1855 and today. Open to the public, it is modelled on the photothèque at the

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

in Paris and has adopted the same classification system.

History

The Photothèque was opened in 1984 in order to display photographic collections previously stored in the municipal archives. Its objective was to provide a permanent showcase for photographs documenting the look of the city over the various periods of its urban development."Photothèque", ''Ville de Luxembourg''
Retrieved 22 November 2012. Its design, equipment and method of operation were based on experience in France, specifically from

Documentation française La Documentation française is a French public publishing service of general documentation on major newsworthy problems for French administrations and the French public. It edits academic reports and studies of the French government as well as a pu ...

and the ''photothèque'' at the

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. After operating for a period as part of the city's binding department at 63, rue du Fort Neipperg, in 1992 the increasingly popular Photothèque moved into specially built premises at the Cloche d'Or in the south of Luxembourg City. The holdings acquired in 1985 are still considered the most important. They consist of Bernard Wolff's collection with historic views taken by various photographers during the final period of Luxembourg's fortifications,

Batty Fischer Jean-Baptiste (Batty) Fischer (1877–1958) was a Luxembourgish dentist and amateur photographer. He is best remembered for his collection of some 10,000 photographs that richly document the development of Luxembourg City from the end of the 19th ce ...

's collection of photographs documenting the city's development in the 19th and 20th centuries, and a series of originals taken by Luxembourg-born photographer

Edward Steichen Edward Jean Steichen (; March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter and curator and a pioneer of fashion photography. His gown images for the magazine ''Art et Décoration'' in 1911 were the first modern ...

Location

Situated at 10, rue Eugène Ruppert, in the Cloche d'Or district of Luxembourg City, the Photothèque is open to the public on weekdays.

Collections

The holdings comprise some four million photographs taken between 1855 and the present day. They have been built up over the years through donations and bequests as well as by works specifically funded by the city. Most of the archives are on the ground floor while the first floor is occupied by the city's binding service as well as by the remaining archives."Visite à la photothèque de Luxembourg-ville: Instants de mémoire"
ALBAD: Associatioun vun de Lëtzebuerger Bibliotekären, Archivisten en Dokumentalisten. Retrieved 2 December 2010. Among the most important collections are those of

(some 10,000 documents showing the look of the city between 1890 and 1958); Théo Mey (some 400,000 photographs of the Grand Duchy in the 1950s and 1960s); the archives of Edouard Kutter and his son of the same name (comprising some 200,000 photographs of the

Grand Ducal family The grand ducal family of Luxembourg constitutes the House of Luxembourg-Nassau, headed by the sovereign grand duke, and in which the throne of the grand duchy is hereditary. It consists of heirs and descendants of the House of Nassau-Weilburg, wh ...

and of news items from 1950 to 1980); Tony Krier (400,000 images of Luxembourg City, the Grand Duchy and events from 1939 to 1967); as well as a collection of some 500,000 negatives from Camille and Pol Aschman covering news items from 1935 to 1988. In 1992, Remo Raffaelli — who had worked together with Jacques Bohler, a photographer with ''Républicain Lorrain'' and ''Tageblatt'' — donated 40,000 negatives related to newspaper articles on sport and culture between 1976 and 1988. In 1994, Pierre Bertogne enriched the holdings with a further 16,000 images taken during the 1930s and 1940s which include photographs of Luxembourg's occupation during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and its subsequent liberation. Martine Theisen, who has been at the Photothèque since 1989 and has held the post of director since 1998, explains that most people come to see the older pictures which remind them of the city as it was when they were children. Efforts are still being made to build up the collection in order to ensure wider coverage of the city and its history. Among the ten people working at the Photothèque, there is also a photographer who is regularly assigned to keep abreast of changes in the city's development. In relation to digitization, Ms Theisen explains that it has not yet been possible to find a firm capable of handling such a large assignment under suitable conditions. Efforts will however continue in this direction in the future.

Classification

Each photograph is initially registered with a numerical code showing the year of acquisition, the number of the album where it is held and its sequential number in the acquisition records. In addition, catalogue cards give a detailed description of the work, its origin and author, the date when the photograph was taken, as well as information about the negative and applicable copyright. These details are kept together with the corresponding photograph in metal-backed albums, each containing between 25 and 30 documents. The negatives are stored separately in chronological order with codes identifying the album in question. Works of special historical value are removed from the collection for safekeeping and replaced with copies. The alphabetic index is based on pertinent items from the description of the photograph.Jean-Pierre Fielder, "L'Histoire d'une photothèque"
''Ons Stad'', No. 45, 1994. Retrieved 28 November 2010.

Publications and copying service

Since 2000, four books in the series "''Les trésors de la photothèque''" have been published. Each volume presents the work of one of the Photothèque's best represented photographers. Those published to date cover Pol Aschman (photojournalism from 1935 to 1988), Marcel Schroeder (local history up to 1999), Théo Mey (photojournalism from 1950 to 1980), Tony Krier (reportages from 1939 to 1972). All are available at the Photothèque. Visitors are also able to purchase paper copies of the archived photographs, usually for less than

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

10 per copy for standard size. Owing to copyright regulations, digital copies are not available."Fotothek der Stadt Luxemburg: Das Auge der Hauptstadt"
ALBAD: Associatioun vun de Lëtzebuerger Bibliotekären, Archivisten en Dokumentalisten. Retrieved 2 December 2010

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Phototheque Museums in Luxembourg City History museums in Luxembourg Art museums and galleries in Luxembourg Photography in Luxembourg Photography museums and galleries Art museums and galleries established in 1984 1984 establishments in Luxembourg