Gründerzeitmuseum

Description

In the Berlin district of Mahlsdorf, the Gründerzeit Museum in the Gutshaus Mahlsdorf occupies a central position as a preserver and exhibition space for everyday culture of the late 19th century. It is located at Hultschiner Damm 333 in the Marzahn‑Hellersdorf borough and displays one of the largest contiguous collections of Gründerzeit objects in Europe. The house also serves as a backdrop for film and television productions, as a venue for theatre performances, and is used for civil wedding ceremonies.

The museum opened its doors for the first time on 1 August 1960; its foundation goes back to Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who had moved into the building several years earlier and thereby saved it from demolition. From small initial displays the exhibition grew; at its height it encompassed up to 23 rooms. State attempts to take over the museum in the GDR were unsuccessful. After a violent assault in 1991 the founder left the country, the house closed in 1995 and was reopened in 1997 by a support association. Since then this association has cared for and presented the collection in cooperation with the Marzahn‑Hellersdorf cultural department; after the founder’s death the collection has been owned equally by the State of Berlin and the support association.

The exhibition comprises 17 fully furnished rooms with furniture and everyday objects of bourgeois life from roughly 1870 to 1900. Two ladies’ salons, a gentleman’s room, a bedroom and mechanical musical instruments are among the highlights; the museum also houses Berlin’s oldest surviving Zille‑style pub, the Mulackritze (c. 1890). The majority of the rooms are furnished in the Neo‑Renaissance style; a dining room displays Neo‑Gothic design. The garden hall, added late in the 19th century, functions as the “best room” and as an events space. Since renovation work, space in the attic area has been created for a variety of events; plays and films about the founder are shown regularly and the collection is used for documentary productions. In 2011 a newly assembled collection that the founder had put together after emigrating to Sweden was purchased and integrated into the exhibition.

The manor house, which is protected as a historic monument, dates from around 1815 and was built as the Amtsvorwerk building of the Köpenick state domain. After various uses during the 20th century the house had become dilapidated in the 1950s and was due to be demolished. A construction conversion phase from 1869 shaped the building’s present late‑Neoclassical appearance with a large garden staircase and enfilades. Following a conservation plan from 2001, monument‑appropriate works began in 2004 and a comprehensive restoration took place between 2007 and 2012; smaller measures continued thereafter.

South of the house lies a historic park that was redesigned as a landscape park in the 1880s. In the 1990s the grounds were restored in accordance with monument conservation principles and laid out with reference to their condition around 1900. The park is open to the public and contains a memorial stone commemorating Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.