Stadtmuseum Weimar, Municipal museum in Weimar, Germany
The Stadtmuseum Weimar is housed in the Bertuchhaus, a classicist residential and commercial building constructed in two phases between 1780 and 1803 on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße. The north wing was built 1780–1782 by Johann Friedrich Rudolph Steiner for Friedrich Justin Bertuch; the central section was designed and built 1799–1803 by Johann Christian Heinrich Schlüter and housed the Landes-Industrie-Comptoir and Geographisches Institut. The museum has occupied the building since 1955.
Founded on 24 June 1889 as a natural science museum under the Natural Science Society, it occupied four rooms of the school behind the town church. In 1892 lack of space forced a move to the Poseck house, now the Museum of Pre- and Early History of Thuringia. Taken over by the city administration in 1903, it became the first municipal museum in Thuringia; since 1955 it has been housed in the Bertuch house.
The museum keeps the larger part of the artistic estate of the painter Alfred Ahner, and its textile collection is of supra-regional importance. Friedrich Schiller, in a letter to Christian Gottfried Körner, called the Bertuch house the most beautiful in all of Weimar and left a detailed appraisal of the building and its garden.
The museum sits at Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 5, near the main station and the Neues Museum, with the Weimarhallenpark behind the building. It was closed to visitors from 2000 to 2005. The Kunsthalle "Harry Graf Kessler" at Goetheplatz 9b and the Bienenmuseum are run through the Stadtmuseum.
The workshops behind the Bertuchhaus once formed a four-sided courtyard; Christiane Vulpius, Goethe's wife, was among those who worked there. They were demolished in 1928 to make way for the Weimarhalle. The museum also holds most of the artistic estate of painter Alfred Ahner and a textile collection of supra-regional importance.
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