The Grassi Museum is a building complex in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

, home to three museums: the

Ethnography Museum Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

, 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 who was of Italian descent. As a result of his extensive heritage given to the city, numerous monuments and buildings were constructed. Life ...

, 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 A collective trademark, collective trade mark, or collective mark is a trademark owned by an organization (such ...

to the city upon his death in 1880.Leipzigs "Grassi" erwacht in neuem Glanz

Dankwart Guratzsch Dankwart Guratzsch (born 14 June 1939) is a German journalist. He has made a name for himself above all as an architecture critic. Life Guratzsch was born in Dresden in 1939, the son of the writer and teacher Curt Guratzsch (1891-1965). In 1957 ...

, ''

Die Welt (, ) is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group and it is considered a newspaper of record in Germany. Its leading competitors are the ...

'', 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 ...

and the Mende Fountain, as well as the "Old Grassi Museum". Built from 1892 to 1895 on the Königsplatz (now Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz), this originally housed the

Museum of Ethnography Ethnographic museums, also known as ethnological museums, conserve, display and contextualize items relevant to the field of ethnography, the systematic study of people and cultures. Such museums include: List by country or region Albania * Ethnogr ...

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 ) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against German Expressionism, expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle Mannheim, Kunsthalle' ...

and

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

, based around several courtyards. It was built from 1925 to 1929 (one of the few new museums of the

Weimar Era The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as ...

), on the site of the old Johannis Hospital. The urban planner

Hubert Ritter Hubert Hans Ritter (17 March 1886 – 25 May 1967) was a German architect, urban planner and building official. Life Hubert Ritter came from a Nuremberg family of artists on his father's side, his grandfather was the painter and engraver Lore ...

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 (''NZZ''; "New Newspaper of Zurich") is German language daily newspaper, published by NZZ Mediengruppe in Zurich. The paper was founded in 1780. It has a reputation as a high-quality newspaper, as the German Swiss newspaper of record ...

'', 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 to 1985 due to a problem with the heating system. It was completely renovated from 2001 to 2005, 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 known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

. 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 New states of Germany, former East Germany. It was established in 2002 in Halle, Saxony- ...

Repatriation

In 2023 the museum was one of seven German museums to return

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

and

Moriori The Moriori are the first settlers of the Chatham Islands ( in Moriori language, Moriori; in Māori language, Māori). Moriori are Polynesians who came from the New Zealand mainland around 1500 AD, which was close to the time of the ...

remains to the

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. Usually known as Te Papa ( Māori for ' the treasure box'), it opened in 1998 after the merging of the National Museum of New Zealand ...

in New Zealand.

Trade fair

The Grassi Museum hosts an annual

trade fair A trade show, also known as trade fair, trade exhibition, or trade exposition, is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific Industry (economics), industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest Product (business), products and se ...

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

Notes

External links

The Grassi Museum

Andreas Platthaus, ''

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The (; ''FAZ''; "Frankfurt General Newspaper") is a German newspaper founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt and is considered a newspaper of record for Germany. Its Sunday edition is the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung'' ( ...

'', 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