State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart

The museum at the Lion Gate is a museum of paleontology and geology. It is part of the State Museum for Natural History in Stuttgart, whose members also included the Museum Schloss Rosenstein as well as some field offices are. The museum at the Lion Gate is situated in north Stuttgart on the edge of Rosensteinpark and has about 110,000 visitors a year.

History

The State Museum for Natural History in Stuttgart went from 1950 in 1791 established the Natural History Collection of the Dukes of Württemberg forth. In 1817, King William I explained this to the public collection of the state. In 1854 Oscar Fraas worked on the systematic expansion of the geological, paleontological and mineralogical departments in the Royal Natural History Cabinet, and in 1894 his son Eberhard Fraas.

The collection of the State Museum of Natural History was housed before the Second World War in the Neckar road in the city center. Some of the exhibits were destroyed during the war, by far the greater part of which was previously outsourced, remained. The biological collection of the museum is shown since 1954 at Rosenstein castle. A suitable exhibition space for the paleontological collection was by location search and planning time in the new building of the museum at the Lion Gate realized (begun in 1981, opened 1985). The Stuttgart-based architectural firm Siegel, Wonneberg and Partners designed a museum complex consisting of two adjoining a spacious yard and buildings connected underground.

In the southeastern building located on multiple, partly underground floors Magazine, research laboratories, workshops, offices, the management, public relations and administration.

In the north of the forecourt is the exhibition building, at this affiliated cafeteria. The permanent collection is a " one-room museum " with three levels and a total of over 3500 square meters of exhibition space, the ceiling height is up to 11 meters.

Director is currently (2012 ) Johanna Eder.

Permanent exhibition

The exhibition in the museum at the Lion Gate shows a number of fossils mainly from Southwest Germany, a region with comparatively rich fossil deposits. An exhibit at the Museum is the skull of Steinheim early man Homo steinheimensis (see also Urmensch Museum).

In the entrance level of the museum are cash and level of information, the museum shop and space for temporary exhibitions. Right next to the entrance a few steps lead to the so-called amber cabinet, which shows in the fossil resin trapped animals and plants.

From the entrance, a staircase leads to a mezzanine, where the trail begins through the exhibition, which covers 250 million years geological history in Baden- Württemberg. The path starts with the Triassic period ( million years ago, about 250 to 210), via the Jurassic period ( million years ago, about 210-140 ) to the Tertiary period ( 65-2 million years ) and ends with mammoth, aurochs and the cave during the ice ages of the Quaternary ( million two years ago to the present). Life-size replicas of prehistoric inhabitants in dioramas ( sandstone, limestone, Lower Keuper, Middle Keuper, Black Jura, Jura White ), combined with the original findings should provide insights into the world millions of years ago. Other dioramas et al the Quaternary are planned.

In 2007, at the Museum at the Lion Gate, the Great National Exhibition in Baden- Württemberg " dinosaur - successful models of evolution" shown. This exhibition presented the dinosaurs as successful animals that roamed the earth 250 million years long. A total of 328,000 visitors were counted. Since 2008, a revision and graphical revamping the entire exhibition.

Museum Education

Guides on various topics for groups of pre-school age, as well as projects, holiday programs, field trips and family tours