The Märkisches Museum (Marcher Museum; originally Märkisches Provinzial-Museum, i.e. Museum of the Province of the March [of Brandenburg]) is a museum in Mitte, Berlin. Founded in 1874 as the museum of the city of Berlin and its political region, the March of Brandenburg, it occupies a building on the northern edge of Köllnischer Park, facing the Spree, which was designed by Ludwig Hoffmann and completed in 1908. It is now the main facility of the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Landesmuseum für Kultur und Geschichte Berlins, the City of Berlin museum foundation, which also operates four other sites.
The museum closed for extensive renovations in 2023. Reopening is planned by 2029.https://www.berlin.museum/en/museum/maerkisches-museum
Background In the second half of the 19th century, Berlin grew very rapidly. The foundation stone of a new, much larger town hall, the Rotes Rathaus, was laid in 1861. The changes provoked interest amongst the bourgeoisie in the city's past and in preserving what had not already been lost. The Verein für die Geschichte Berlins (Association for the history of Berlin) was founded. It included early photographers such as Friedrich Albert SchwartzDas Landesarchiv Berlin und seine Bestände volume 4 Übersicht der Nachlässe (Tektonik-Gruppe E) und Sammlungen (Tektonik-Gruppe F), Schriftenreihe des Landesarchivs Berlin, 3rd ed. rev. Heike Schroll and Regina Rousavy, Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2006, , p. 199 who began to document the changes to the city, assembling one of the first systematic photographic portraits of a city and its architecture. Beginning in the 1860s, they urged the foundation of a regional history museum. Ernst Friedel, a judge and antiquarian who had personally collected prehistoric and historic objects and paintings from Brandenburg for this purpose, persuaded the Magistrat, the executive council of Berlin, to form a new department of "Collections" and Friedel was appointed to head it together with the existing library and archive. On 9 October 1874 with the city's official acceptance of his plan, the Märkisches Provinzialmuseum (Provincial museum of the March) was founded.Gustav Albrecht, "Ernst Friedel, 1837 – 1907: Ein Gedenkblatt zum 70. Geburtstage", Festschrift zur Feier des siebzigsten Geburtstages ihres Ersten Vorsitzenden, des Geheimen Regierungsrates und Stadtrates Ernst Friedel, Archiv der Brandenburgia, Gesellschaft für Heimatkunde der Provinz Brandenburg 12 (1907) , pp. 1–64, pp. 30, 31 Michael S. Cullen, "Das Gedächtnishaus der Urenkel", in: Der Tagesspiegel, 14 October 1998 This was the first museum in Berlin to be completely independent of the Prussian crown.Kurt Winkler, "'Alt-Berlin' im Märkischen Museum. Musealisierung als Strategie der Modernisierung", in: Roland Berbig et al. (eds.), Berlins 19. Jahrhundert: Ein Metropolen-Kompendium, Berlin: Akademie, 2011, , pp. 491–506, p. 496 It had a budget of only 2,000 Goldmarks a year for purchases, and was therefore dependent from the start on donations from foundations and individuals.Kai Michel, "'Und nun kommen Sie auch gleich noch mit 'ner Urne. Oder ist es bloss 'ne Terrine?' Das Märkische Provinzial-Museum in Berlin (1874–1908)", in Mäzenatisches Handeln: Studien zur Kultur des Bürgersinns in der Gesellschaft: Festschrift für Günter Braun zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Thomas W. Gaehtgens and Martin Schieder, Bürgerlichkeit, Wertewandel, Mäzenatentum 1, Berlin: Fannei & Walz, 1998, pp. 60–81, p. 79 The Emperor later contributed a small fund for the purchase of photographs of the city.
Early history
In March 1875, Friedel put out a call for the donation or loan of objects of historical or scientific interest, which was so successful that the collection had to move late that year from the old town hall to the Palais Podewils, a Baroque residence in Klosterstraße, and in 1880 to the former town hall of Cölln. At that time it had over 29,500 objects.Albrecht, pp. 32–33. In addition, Berlin in the "Gründerzeit" was full of demolitions and excavations, which yielded both fragments of old buildings and prehistoric and medieval finds.Winkler, "Alt-Berlin", p. 497. The collection was crowded and in particular the large pieces taken from churches could not be properly displayed.Sven Kuhrau, Der Kunstsammler im Kaiserreich: Kunst und Repräsentation in der Berliner Privatsammlerkultur, Doctoral dissertation, Free University of Berlin, Kiel: Ludwig, 2005, , p. 195 However, the inventory was not without its uses: an executioner's axe from the collection was used on 16 August 1878 to behead Max Hödel after his attempted assassination of Emperor Wilhelm I."Scharfe Sache", Stadtlichter, Der Tagesspiegel, 15 April 2008
At the urging of Friedel, a competition was held in 1892 for a building to house the collection, but the results were disappointing. 76 entries were received, but the winning design, by Wilhelm Möller, proved on examination to be both unsuitable and too expensive, and the architect had died,C. Jk., "Zur Erinnerung an Wilhelm Möller", Deutsche Bauzeitung 26 (1892) p. 337 K., "W. Moeller †", Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung 28 (1893) p. 288 so the project was shelved.Albrecht, p. 33
Building
Creating a new building for the museum was the first large task for Ludwig Hoffmann after his appointment in 1896 as Stadtbaurat (chief of construction) for the city of Berlin. His first sketches date to that year; the plans were accepted the following year, and construction began in 1899 and was completed in 1907. It was not ready for occupation until 1908,Albrecht, p. 34. 12 years after the start of the project. Meanwhile, in 1899, in advance of the demolition of the Cölln town hall, some of the collection had been placed in storage and some shown in temporary quarters on the first floor of one of the city's covered markets, until 1904.
Hoffmann designed the museum as a complex of six differing buildings which echo Brandenburg brick architecture of periods from the Gothic to the Renaissance in a "historical collage", in order to reflect the contents of the museum and evoke the "atmosphere" of various times and types of building.Märkisches Museum, Denkmale in Berlin, Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt Ludwig Hoffmann and Fritz Stahl, Ludwig Hoffmann, Berliner Architekturwelt Sonderhefte 14, Berlin: Wasmuth, 1914, , pp. xi–xv ; images and drawings, pp. 1–23; pp. 11–12: "Haus und Räume mußten die Stimmung geben....Dieser energische Hinweis auf die Bauweise der märkischen Heimat ..." - "The building and the spaces in it had to provide the atmosphere....This energetic evocation of the ways of building of our homeland, the Mark ..." Part of his reasoning was that Berlin no longer had much of an old centre.Hoffmann and Stahl, p. xii. The buildings are grouped around two courtyards and based on historic details which he had studied and sketched throughout the region; his "quotations" are accurate copies, but there is disagreement as to the originals, as in a façade which has been said to be based on the town hall at Tangermünde or on St. Catherine's Church in Brandenburg an der Havel,Lothar Heinke, "Trutzburg am Köllnischen Park feiert Geburtstag: Ein Speicher unterschiedlichster Exponate: Das Märkische Museum in Mitte wird hundert Jahre alt und zeigt in der Jubiläumsausstellung 'Gefühlte Geschichte' seine Schätze", Der Tagesspiegel, 9 April 2008 and the hip-roofed tower, high, based on the bergfried (keep) of the Bishop's Castle in Wittstock or on the cathedral of Ratzeburg.Märkisches Museum, Stadtmuseum.de, retrieved 6 August 2012 Hoffmann also modified the layout of Köllnischer Park to make an attractive setting for the museum.Hoffmann and Stahl, p. xi.
The interior of the museum also seeks to evoke the atmosphere of different historical settings (as was then the fashion in provincial museums in Germany). For example, the low vaulted ceilings and roughly plastered walls on the ground floor were intended to suggest great age and housed the displays on prehistory, where the display cases for funerary urns and flint axes were rough in form; the setting for the medieval altars and sculptures was a vaulted Gothic chapel echoing medieval church interiors; weapons were shown in a room with thick columns, recalling a monastery; and rococo porcelain and snuffboxes were displayed in elegant vitrines in a light and airy room on the second floor. There were a total of about 50 exhibition galleries. The visitor was led repeatedly back to the central vaulted Great Hall."Märkisches Museum: Wandeln unter Kreuzrippen", Der Tagesspiegel, 24 June 2001
A week before the opening on 10 June 1908, Emperor Wilhelm II and Empress Auguste Viktoria toured the exhibits for two hours.Michael Zajonz, "Zeit, wo ist dein Geist?: Das Märkische Museum gibt es seit 100 Jahren. Doch es zählt zu den Stiefkindern der kommunalen Berliner Museumslandschaft. Eine neue Ausstellung sucht Wege zur 'gefühlten Geschichte'", Der Tagesspiegel, 11 April 2008 The museum is now judged to be amongst Hoffmann's most important works, and also one of the most outstanding German museum buildings.Michael Zajonz, "Wurzelsuche: Hundert Jahre wird das Märkische Museum in diesem Sommer. Viel zu lange wurde das sanierungsbedürftige Stammhaus der Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin von der Politik vernachlässigt und von schlecht informierten Berlintouristen übersehen. All das soll sich nun ändern", Der Tagesspiegel, 11 July 2008 Winkler, "Alt-Berlin", pp. 492–93.
History since 1908
Before and after World War I The museum was widely praised and popular, attracting approximately 70,000 visitors a year and supported by the Verein für das Märkische Museum, which included some wealthy and prominent Berliners. Especially after the creation of Greater Berlin in 1920, it focussed more on the city than on the Mark Brandenburg.Kurt Winkler, "Die Musealisierung der Mark Brandenburg im 19. Jahrhundert", in Im Dialog mit Raubrittern und Schönen Madonnen: Die Mark Brandenburg im späten Mittelalter, ed. Clemens Bergstedt et al., Studien zur brandenburgischen und vergleichenden Landesgeschichte 6, Berlin: Lukas, 2011, , pp. 36–43, p. 42 However, it was affected by the First World War and the revolution and out of control inflation which followed it.
In 1925, Walter Stengel became Director of the museum, the first in that position with professional training and experience in art history and museum science. He left Hoffmann's gallery displays largely untouched, but did introduce electric lighting in 1932, over the objections of the now retired architect. He also experimented with recorded commentary in the galleries, using gramophones.Tobias Wall, Das unmögliche Museum: Zum Verhältnis von Kunst und Kunstmuseen der Gegenwart, Kultur- und Museumsmanagement, Bielefeld: Transcript, 2006, , p. 209, note 30 He used the museum extension, the 18th-century Ermeler House, to display the Alfred Cassirer collection of artworks, including several works of French Impressionism, as a unified whole,Sabine Beneke, "Ausklang einer Epoche: Die Sammlung Alfred Cassirer", in Die Moderne und ihre Sammler: Französische Kunst in deutschem Privatbesitz vom Kaiserreich zur Weimarer Republik, ed. Andrea Pophanken and Felix Billeter, Passagen 3, Berlin: Akademie, 2001, , pp. 327–46, pp. 330, 334–35 and to draw visitors back to the museum, held spectacular special exhibitions, some of them offsite. The exhibition celebrating the 70th birthday of the popular illustrator Heinrich Zille in 1928, the first extensive exhibition of his work,Weltschätze der Kunst, der Menschheit bewahrt: Ausstellung anlässlich des 40. Jahrestages des Sieges über den Hitlerfaschismus und der Befreiung des deutschen Volkes: Altes Museum vom 13. März bis 23. Mai 1985, ed. Arne Effenberger, Rainer Michaelis and Hermann Simon, Exhibition catalogue, Berlin State Museums, 1985, , p. 240 was especially popular.Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 18 (2007) p. 108