Haus der Kamener Stadtgeschichte

Description

In the centre of Kamen, Das Haus der Stadtgeschichte plays a central role in commemorating and researching the local past. The building is located close to the town hall, between Kamener Markt and the railway station, and has housed the city archive, the research library and the local history museum since 2002.

The archive was housed in the Old Town Hall on the Alten Markt until 2001; it began there under voluntary sponsorship and was placed under full-time professional management in 1981. In addition to the files of the city administration, the city archive collects other historical records related to Kamen, for example from businesses, schools, associations, trade unions and political parties. Visitors can consult the holdings in the reading room, and selected texts are available online on the city’s website.

The listed building was erected from 1894 to 1896 for the Royal Prussian district court and was leased to the Prussian treasury on 18 January 1896. As an example of historicist architecture, it was probably based on a standard design; a very similar courthouse exists in Schwerte. The building remained in municipal ownership and was used as a district court from 1896 to 1964, as a municipal administrative building from 1964 to 1977, and from 1977 until March 1998 it housed the district/city library. Following a city council decision of 3 November 1998, extensive renovation work began in early 1999 to prepare the building for the archive and museum. The city archive moved in on 1 September 2001; the Kamener Stadtmuseum was reopened in the newly refurbished building on 2 October 2002 and has since borne the name “Das Haus der Stadtgeschichte”. The building has two storeys: on the ground floor are the archive, the reading room and the research library; the upper floor houses the museum and an events room. The cellar and attic serve as storage. Owing to its original use as a district court, a slightly offset attached cell block has been preserved.

The city museum has had a chequered history: originally founded as a local history museum in the 1920s, it had to be relocated during the Second World War. It reopened in 1984 as the Municipal Museum in the Old Town Hall, from where it moved to Das Haus der Stadtgeschichte in 1999.

Since February 2012 the permanent exhibition has presented the development from Germanic settlement in the Seseke‑Körne‑Winkel to the present; the displays are arranged chronologically and the rooms concentrate on thematic focal points. Three monitor columns convey images and films about archaeological finds, a shoemaker’s workshop and mining. The permanent exhibition is complemented by temporary presentations on local historical topics and by works by Kamener artists.