Naturhistorisches Museum

The Natural History Museum in Vienna (short: NHM ) With about 30 million objects from the collection of the most important natural history museums in the world and is one of Austria's largest museums.

The as k.k. Natural History Museum yard run house that the great imperial collections of the Imperial Farm- kind cabinets recorded, was commissioned by Emperor Franz Joseph I. of Hofärar according to designs by Gottfried Semper and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer at the 1865 opened Vienna's Ringstrasse opposite the Imperial Palace built and opened on 10 August 1889. The Hofärar was taken over by the State German Austria, 1919 Republic of Austria on 12 November 1918.

• 3.6.1 meteorite collection
• 3.6.2 Mineral Collection

History

Around the year 1750 bought Emperor Franz I Stephan of Lorraine, the co-governing in the Habsburg lands husband of the Austrian empress Maria Theresa, from Florence Johann Ritter von Baillou ( 1679-1758 ) is the largest at this time collection of natural history specimens. The heart of the collection was formed 30,000 objects, including rare snails, corals, shells and precious gems and rare minerals. Even then, the collection has been arranged according to scientific criteria.

Over time the collections were so extensive that the premises of the Hofburg no longer offered enough space. In the course of by Franz Joseph I on Christmas 1857 in order demolition of outmoded Vienna city walls and the construction of the ring road of the staff responsible for the exploitation of property city expansion fund's also space for new buildings for two imperial museums, the Natural History and the history of art. The natural history collections were at that time no longer privately owned by the House of Habsburg- Lorraine, but were as Hofärar, directly managed by the Imperial Treasury, defined; the art historical collections were the property of the family fund of the imperial family. For the two museum buildings therefore served the court of the Emperor as principal.

The architect was identified in a contest of 1867, in which Karl Hasenauer participated; the emperor had Hasenauer plans by Gottfried Semper examine, and Hasenauer won him to cooperate. This results in a not always harmonious community work of two architects showed at both museums. The construction of the two imperial museums began in 1871, six years after the ceremonial opening of the ring road; the Museum of Fine Arts but was in 1891, two years later than the NHM opened.

The two museum buildings were the ring road aligned by their arrangement across it to frame with two to be connected to the other side of the road new wings of the Imperial Palace and the historic front of the Imperial Palace is a monumental Imperial Forum (see also Heroes' Square ), which due to the end of the monarchy in 1918 torso remained. Semper and Hasenauer built but from 1881 on one of the two planned new tracts of the Hofburg, the so-called New Castle, between the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Imperial Palace. And they built on another part of the ring road, the new 1874-1888 kk Hof - Burgtheater.

The NHM, since 1920, a federal museum under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, participated in the following decades, an unobtrusive development. This has become small republican Austria could not muster the resources to make the NHM recent museological knowledge accordingly or to expand the collection with sensational acquisitions. During the reign of the Nazis, 1938-1945, the museum received stocks in "Aryanized " Jewish possession. The last appointed before the Nazi period in 1933 Director General, Hermann Michel, who was deposed in 1938, served again from 1947 to 1951 as such. After 1945, the return of unlawfully acquired properties to their rightful owners throughout Austria was not a major concern of policy and management for decades. Only the restitution provisions adopted at international pressure in the 1990s meant that the national collections, including the NHM, felt obliged to systematically search for objects that can be reset.

Since 1978, consisted in the NHM the so-called race hall in which the evolution of humans was shown towards human races with different showpieces and this evaluative accompanying texts. 1993 criticized the British anthropologist Adam Kuper the showroom as a manifestation of " Nazi -like racial science ". Only after a series of articles about it in the Viennese city newspaper Falter and several parliamentary questions of the Greens to the responsible Minister of Science, the exhibition was closed in 1996. The opening of the place from the ground up redesigned anthropological halls in January 2013.

The first time in 1998 and amended in 2002 adopted federal Museums Act made ​​it possible to outsource the NHM on January 1, 2003 as a public scientific institution with its own legal personality from the federal government. On 8 July 2003, it was also due to the order of the Museum Natural History Museum December 20, 2002, entered into force on 1 January 2003, registered with the Commercial Register 236724z the Companies Register.

2003-2009 Bernd solder was managing director. In December 2009, Christian Koeberl was presented as a successor, who took office on 1 June 2010. The Supervisory Board currently consists of Roland Albert, Christa Bock, Christian Cap, Manfred Christ, Gerhard Ellert, Monika Gabriel, Walter Hamp, Michael Hladik and Angela Julcher.

The previous Pathologic- Anatomical Museum in Narrenturm, the last remaining in the direct management of the Ministry of Education Museum, was incorporated in the fall of 2011 on January 1, 2012, federal law in the scientific institution, Natural History Museum Vienna and has since been a Pathological- anatomical collection in Narrenturm ( NHM ) refers.

Today, the museum recorded over 500,000 visits and may in the parts in which objects and furnishings are the same as for the opening in 1889, are regarded as a museum of a museum.

The building

The museum building extends between two line or Museum Square and Castle Ring; the rear borders the Bellariastraße. The front in the southeast turns to the symmetrical park and the same against the Kunsthistorisches Museum. The central, about 60 meters high dome is seen from afar; and under it is the beautiful staircase. On the dome you can see the Greek sun god Helios. The facade and the stucco decorations in the interiors show the historical development of the world and outer space. Further facilities in the exhibition rooms over 100 oil paintings with motifs from the world of science.

Dome of the central building

Allegorical representation of Zoology in the dome

The kingdoms of nature and its Exploration - Emperor Franz Joseph I - 1881

Panorama

Departments

The museum is divided into the following departments, which are led by scientific leaders:

• Department of Anthropology
• Archive for the History of Science
• Department of Botany
• Geological- Palaeontological Department
• Department of karst and speleology
• Mineralogy and Petrography Department
• Department of Ecology
• Department of Prehistory
• 1st Zoological Department (vertebrates ) with molecular - systematic investigation body
• 2nd Zoological Department ( insects) with main zoological preparation
• 3 Zoological Department (invertebrates )

Department of Anthropology

The Anthropology permanent exhibition was conceived after the closure of the former "race hall " in 1996 from scratch and opened in January 2013. It is dedicated to the evolution of hominids and the emergence process of humans. In the halls 14 and 15 there are two issues at the center: upright walking and brain evolution. Starting from the closest living relatives, the great apes, the development of modern, adapted to different habitats are human Homo sapiens is represented to the Neolithic period with several paleoanthropological topics blocks. The development is shown not only as a (pre - ) historical and biological process, but also highlighted the cultural development as an essential component of the Incarnation.

According to recent findings on the evolution of man is the development not illustrated in the form of a family tree, but as " ordinary bush " made ​​of glass, which is intended to illustrate one hand, that the development did not take place in a straight line, and on the other hand, to " the vague character" of the fossil to " fragmentary certificates based attempts at reconstruction " is meant to indicate. Also shown is a representative selection of fossils, as well as soft tissue reconstruction of Homo erectus, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

Inventory:

• Osteological Collection ( skeletons / skeleton parts, about 40,000 objects )
• Somatological collection ( about 2600 objects )
• X-ray image collection (more than 1500 images )
• Photo Archive (more than 50,000 inventory numbers, including approximately 8000 glass plates )

Archive for the History of Science

The archive is divided into five sections with a total of over one million objects:

Department of Botany

The herbarium of the Natural History Museum, which due to the high number of over 200,000 type specimens to the most important collections in the world.

The collections originate to a considerable extent from their own expeditions, but for decades already made ​​a lively exchange traffic with international partnership institutions. The geographic focus of the collections are in Europe, the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Central Europe and the entire Mediterranean region, particularly Greece and Turkey. The centers of collecting interest on the Asian continent, the Middle East, the Caucasus and the area of ​​Flora Iranica ( Iranian highlands and adjacent regions). Collections mainly from Tunisia, East and Central Africa as well as from the Cape Region are available from Africa. Collection of core areas in South America are mainly Brazil and Argentina and Chile. The Botanical Department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna also preserves considerable evidence from Australia and New Zealand.

The botanical collections of the museum are divided into:

• Herbarium phanerogams (flowering plants )
• Herbarium cryptogams (secret or hidden bloomer)
• Wood collection
• Fruit and seed collection
• Alcohol preparations
• Diatomeenpräparate ( diatoms )

In the sight of the museum, there are no special exhibition on topics of botany.

Geological- Palaeontological Department

Palaeozoic

In hall 7 of the museum the Palaeozoic is presented mainly. Among the highlights of this room, for example, belongs to the replica, artificial carbon forest. In this faithful and large models are to be found of animals that have existed at that time (more than 300 million years ago). These include giant dragonflies as Meganeura. Also worth mentioning is the diorama of a reef from the Silurian.

Dinosaur Hall

In the dinosaur hall there are three skeletal reconstructions of large dinosaurs: Allosaurus, Diplodocus and Iguanodon. In addition to these, some smaller objects, such as visiting the bones and live reconstruction of a Tyrannosaurus skull. In addition, a live model of Deinonychus in size, several skeletons of small dinosaurs such as Protoceratops Psittacosaurus or and skeletal parts are issued ( for example, a Triceratops skull and a Ultrasaurus - leg). On 5 October 2011, the newly designed dinosaur hall was opened. The exhibition was complemented by a further skeletons, life-size models and computer animations, such as illustrating the animated model of an Allosaurus its motion sequences that were reconstructed lifelike. On the ceiling hangs a large Pteranodon original model. Video animations and interactive stations to convey the life of the dinosaurs, but it is also visualized that asteroid impact, which ultimately led to the abrupt end of the dinosaurs.

Cenozoic

The hall 9 of the museum shows mainly the Cenozoic. This started about 65 million years ago, after the end of the Cretaceous and the extinction of dinosaurs and other reptiles. The visitor attraction of this show collection is the skeleton of a Prodeinotheriums that lived about 17 million years ago and was among the Deinotherien, distant relatives of today's elephants. In addition, several pine Another early Russell animals are exhibited. Many fossils of plants from the Vienna area can be seen. These give an idea of ​​the vegetation of this area millions of years ago.

Transitions on the mezzanine floor

The museum has many skeletal reconstructions of animals that lived during the last Ice Age. This includes, for example, the mammoth, the saber- toothed cat and the giant deer and cave bear. All these and other creatures are on display in the corridors of the raised ground floor of the Natural History Museum.

Department of karst and speleology

Today's scientific department of karst and speleology exists since 1987 at the Natural History Museum Vienna and goes back historically to the former Department of cave protection at the Federal Monuments Office, which was placed under the responsibility of the NHM Vienna 1979. The department is dedicated to scientific research and protection of caves and karst areas. Caves are geological phenomena and valuable archives of the natural and human history. Karst areas are special types of landscape, which go back to the solubility of rocks, mountains and caves and underground drainage systems in themselves. Besides the scientific importance of this landscape type the karst areas therefore have an immense importance for the drinking water supply for the population. Karst cave documentaries, Quelltuffuntersuchungen, creating karst dissemination and Karst hazard maps, etc. m. characterize the scientific field of this department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna. Since 2010, the department stands at the exhibition " caves - Landscapes without light" in the lecture hall adjoining the special exhibition spaces for the knowledge of this topic to the general museum audience responsible.

Mineralogy and Petrography Department

Meteorite Collection

The meteorite collection of the Natural History Museum is the world's oldest collection ( 1778) and largest public collection and, with over 7,000 inventoried pieces of historically and scientifically important meteorite the largest in the world. Museum director Christian Koeberl is itself a renowned impact researchers. Curator of the meteorite collection is Franz Brandstätter. From February to November 2012 the meteorite room ( Room V ) for a renovation and redesign was closed. Since the re- opening on 14 November 2012, about 1100 objects are on display ( earlier it was around 2200 ), but much more information on the topic in general and individual exhibits are offered. In June 2013, the NHM received three additional samples of lunar rocks as a long- term loan.

Mineral collection

Another "highlight" of the museum there is to see in Room IV of the Mineralogy Department, a bouquet of precious stones. Gemstone bouquet to Maria Theresa have her husband Franz Stephan made ​​mid-18th century to the present. The bouquet consists of over 2100 diamonds and 761 other precious and semi-precious stones, which are composed to 61 flowers and twelve different animal species. The leaves consist of original green silk, which is unfortunately very faded.

The mineral collection ( Room I -IV) is internationally significant because of their richness of objects from deposits of the former territory of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the alpine area. But there are also many "classic" mineral and ore deposits of Germany, Russia, England, Italy and other countries represented. The oldest mineral stages of collection, up to the art and curiosities of the Renaissance traced.

Department of Ecology

The department was created in 1994 by inclusion of the 1973 and 1978 founded endorsed by the Academy of Sciences Boltzmann Institute of Environmental Sciences. On the basis of issues, especially in the areas of energy and ecology ( solar, hydro), Global Change, Urban Ecology, Sustainable Building and National Parks, the focus of the department is to field work and environmental education. The responsibilities of the Department are CEO to the field offices of the Natural History Museum, the National Park Institute Petronell -Carnuntum falls, will be organized in the v. a school project weeks, topical seminars and in Danube excursions. The building is a building biology model house - " eco-house " - that the way to industrial water recycling and use of the Korkwärmedämmung a solar heating system and wood pellets all alternative methods of energy illustrated.

Department of Prehistory

The Department of Prehistory includes as one of the greatest archaeological collections in Europe following areas:

• Collection of Paleolithic
• Collection of Bronze Age
• Collection Early Iron Age
• Collection Younger Iron Age
• Collection Early History
• Collection Prehistoric mining

In Room 11 there are Stone Age discoveries such as the most prominent prehistoric object, the "Venus of Willendorf " ( age about 25,000 years) and other valuable witnesses of this period: the figure of the gallows and the Venus of Kostenki. The halls 12 and 13 present numerous finds from the Bronze Age and Iron Age to the early historical period and the migration period. The department is associated with the second branch of the Natural History Museum, the historic salt mine in Hallstatt. Due to the conservation effect of the salt and were numerous finds from the period around 1550 to demonstrably brought BC to light there. For over 50 years, this is a key scientific excavation and field research activities of the department. Only in 2010 aroused a sensational discovery, a bailer with calf, great public interest.

1st Zoological Department (vertebrates ) with molecular - systematic investigation body

• Fish Collection 500,000 alcohol preparations
• 1800 Skeletons
• 2000 Stopfpräparate

• 200,000 alcohol preparations
• 6000 skeletons and Stopfpräparate

• 90,000 bellows
• 10,000 Stopfpräparate
• 7000 Skeletons
• 10,000 nests
• 1000 nests

• 70,000 objects

• 350 archaeological complexes
• 350 skeletons
• 1300 Skull

• 9000 tissue or blood samples

The 1st Zoological Department of the Natural History Museum of Vienna represents one of the largest and most important museum vertebrate collections in the world

2nd Zoological Department ( insects) with zoolog. principal preparation

The roots of the second Zoological Department at the Natural History Museum Vienna - also known Entomology - rich 200 years. The collection inventory is rich in historical type material, much of it from Austria and Europe. The collections of the preparations, which amount in total to an estimated ten million collection items, divided into:

• Lepidopterasammlung (butterflies )
• Coleopterasammlung (beetles)
• Dipterasammlung ( Diptera )
• Hemipterasammlung ( Hemiptera, such as: aphids, cicadas, bugs)
• Hymenopterasammlung ( Hymenoptera )
• Insecta varia collection (different insects)

In Hall 24 the museum next to the arthropods ( crustaceans and arachnids, millipedes ) are issued with the insects. Large-scale models of Hans Dappen form impressively from diving beetles and larvae, the Hercules beetle, the stag beetle and the moon horn beetle. In the summer a living colony of bees at the entry and exit via the screen and can be observed an enlarged honeycomb. A termite hill and lowland forest and Amazonian flood plain dioramas to illustrate the specific conditions in the habitats of the fact -based fauna.

3 Zoological Department (invertebrates )

Among the oldest objects of the department, at the time of the founding of the Vienna Natural History Museum to the general division "Zoology " integrated, including mollusc shells and coral. In the collections but all the tribes of the animal kingdom are represented - the objects are as dry, wet and Microscope Slides ago. Many parts of the collection are among the world's biggest and most important, such as centipedes, pseudoscorpions, bristle worms and intestinal worms. Is divided in the inventory:

• Evertebrata varia Collection (various invertebrates)
• Mollusc collection ( molluscs)
• Arachnoid Collection ( spiders)
• Crustacea Collection (crustaceans )
• Myriapoda Collection ( millipedes )

In Room 21 3D microscope views can be projected and mikroskopieren visitors themselves. Protozoa, sponges, coelenterates, echinoderms, and worms will be presented in Room 22. A coral display shows the diversity of hard corals. Molluscs ( bivalves, gastropods, cephalopods ) are issued in the next room 23. From the king or " giant clam " ( Tridacna gigas) - freestanding in the room - tell rumors that jammed pearl should have drowned between their shells. In Hall 24 (cancer and arachnids, millipedes ) are exhibited alongside the insect arthropods.

News

In the special experiment life from 12 March to 30 June 2014, named after its location in Gabon fossil Gabonionta is shown the first time worldwide. This multi- Zeller, who has already developed 2 billion years ago, proves that life on Earth has started twice and do not develop only 500 million years ago.