Duchess Anna Amalia Library
Library view after renovation, 2008
The Duchess Anna Amalia Library (proper spelling, writing quite correct: Duchess Anna Amalia Library ), short HAAB, was founded in 1691 as the " Ducal Library " by Duke Wilhelm Ernst in Weimar. On the occasion of the three hundredth anniversary in 1991, she was named the Duchess Anna Amalia, who was her biggest supporter. Famous is the oval and set on three floors reaching Rokokosaal. The Duchess Anna Amalia Library is a research library for literature and cultural history, with special focus on German literature from the Enlightenment to the late Romantic period.
History
The Ducal Library was founded in 1691, in his collected 1,400 books to the public made accessible as Duke Wilhelm Ernst. In the next thirty years their numbers increased to 11,000 copies. Already in 1711 recommended that the geographer and Universalgelerte Johann Gottfried Gregorii alias MELIS ANTES in its regional and Travel Guide now floristic Rende Thuringia these bibliophile treasures of the city of Weimar as a special attraction. Until 1766, the library was housed in the Royal Palace. After the move to the Green Castle, which was built as a residence for Duke Johann Wilhelm after his marriage with the Countess Palatine Dorothea Susanna 1562-1569 by the court architect Nicholas Grohman took place. The name Green Castle is probably due to the copper covering of the roof. 1706 appointed Duke Wilhelm Ernst of the University of Wittenberg Professor Konrad Samuel Schurz meat for the first Director of the royal library.
The library was named in 1991 after Anna Amalia ( 1739-1807 ), the Duchess of Saxe -Weimar- Eisenach. During her reign took place in 1766, the move of the ducal collection of books in the Green Castle. With the coming of age in 1775 took over Anna Amalia's son Carl August the government. As a new ruler, he built the royal library of more.
Duke Carl August commissioned in 1797 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his colleagues secretly Consilium Christian Gottlob Voigt ( 1743-1819 ) with the superintendence of the library. Goethe until his death in 1832 as a librarian for 35 years. He led one of the most important libraries in Germany at that time. She coined with the Weimar Classic and is still one of the most important archives of this era. In Goethe's term of office, the book inventory doubled to 80,000 volumes. Under the direction of Clemens Wenceslaus Coudray the adjacent tower was converted into a library tower and extended one floor 1821-1825. 1849, the centenary of Goethe's birthday, which was celebrated in the library, the building was given by an annex to the north, executed by Coudray, its present dimension.
Since 1998, the Duchess Anna Amalia Library, being a part of the ensemble Classical Weimar World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Inclusion on the World Heritage List established the UNESCO with the "great art-historical importance of public and private buildings and parklands from the heyday of classical Weimar " and the "outstanding role of Weimar as a spiritual center in the late 18th and early 19th century." World Heritage include a total of eleven memorials in Weimar, " the value of which, formed from the combination of historic events structural shell and authentic equipment" ( German Commission for UNESCO eV ).
2003, the Society for the Promotion Society Anna Amalia Library ( TABS ) was founded in Weimar.
Expansion of the library from 2002
In May 2002, began an expansion to a library center for Weimar with two underground magazines for 1.4 million books. The 23 million euro project was completed in February 2005. From the beginning of August 2004 could be started with the move of the first books. During the parade on Tuesday, 2 September 2004 fire.
Fire on 2 September 2004
On the evening of September 2, 2004, a fire broke out in the attic of the main building, which was stopped on the second floor of the rococo hall by the fire department. The cause of the fire could not be clearly established even after a final report of the Federal. According to the prosecutor's office in Erfurt a technical defect as a probable cause is to be assumed. Thus was a smoldering fire caused by an electrical cable is schmortes, the cause of the fire.
During the fire, about 28,000 books were rescued from the building, including a King James Version of 1534th 50,000 volumes should be recorded as a total loss, including thousands of books in addition also 35 paintings from the 16th to 18th centuries. Around 62,000 volumes have been severely damaged by fire water and fire part. Affected are thus two-fifths of the prints until 1850. The material damage on library stock was estimated at 67 million euros. Already in the first night of the fire water-damaged books were brought to the freeze-drying in the Centre for Book Preservation Leipzig, in the following days also salvaged from the fire debris, partly heavily charred and moist codices. The books are sorted by damage classes, restored in 2015.
In early October 2004, the then Prime Minister Otmar Hasler in the name of the Liechtenstein government a donation of 20,000 euros for the reconstruction of the library.
The restoration of the library building was completed in the summer of 2007. On 24 October 2007, being the 268th birthday of the eponymous Duchess Anna Amalia and the day of the libraries, the library was re-opened by the Federal President Horst Köhler. The cost of the renovation of the building amounted to 12.8 million euros. An exhibition under the title "It takes the moment what give years " is devoted to this reconstruction.
The book cube
After moving into the new magazine the freehand of the new study center for the library users were opened on 5 February 2005. Center is the so-called books - cube. In the hands-free areas in and around the books cube over 100,000 media is offered freely accessible and systematically arranged. In 2006, realized by the Weimar architect Prof. Hilde Barz - Malfatti and Prof. Karl -Heinz Schmitz extension of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library was awarded the Thuringian State Prize for Architecture and Urban Design.
Stock
The Research Library has a collection of about 1 million volumes: The collection's focus is on the German cultural and literary history 1750-1850 The treasures also about 2000 medieval and early modern book manuscripts ( including including a Carolingian Gospel Book from the 9th century. as the oldest book in existence ) and 427 incunabula. These extensive collections of pamphlets of the Reformation, of ordinary books and Bibles - including the rescued during the fire first complete edition of Luther's Bible translation of 1534 - 10 000 historical maps and 27 globes, and the world's largest Fist collection to the historical person of thumb and artistic designs of the Faust material. Placed Closed are the libraries of the family von Arnim, Liszt, Nietzsche, the Weimar books collector hair and the German Shakespeare Society. The private library of Goethe in his apartment building on the woman plan is also managed by the Duchess Anna Amalia Library.