Museum für Photographie Braunschweig
How to find us:
- Street
- Helmstedter Straße 1
- Zip, City
- 38102 Braunschweig
- Country
- Germany
- Phone
- 0531 / 7 50 00
- Fax
- 0531 / 7 50 36
- Web
- http://www.photomuseum.de/
- info@photomuseum.de
Description
Within the cultural fabric of Braunschweig, the Museum für Photographie Braunschweig occupies the role of a specialized institution for photography, dedicated to both historical and contemporary issues of the medium.
The institution is housed in the historic gatehouses on Helmstedter Straße (Torhaus 1, Helmstedter Str. 1; Torhaus 2, house no. 171), just a few metres further into the city from the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum. The mirror‑image, single‑storey rendered buildings belong to the Wallring and mark the Oker crossing on the old main road to Magdeburg; their neoclassical, balanced formal language shapes the ensemble. The collection is held in the Stadtarchiv Braunschweig and is shown in rotation with the exhibitions in the gatehouses.
The museum was founded in 1984 by Braunschweig photographers as a forum for the exchange of photographic images. It is run by a registered non‑profit association supported by its members; its work is funded by the City of Braunschweig, the State of Lower Saxony, cultural foundations and sponsorship. The museum participates in the City of Braunschweig’s Museum Card scheme and is a member of the AdKV.
In terms of its programme, the institution combines international contemporary photography with important positions from the second half of the 20th century. Monographic exhibitions of contemporary photographers form part of its profile, as does the presentation of the Wüstenrot‑Stiftung’s Documentary Photography Prize in cooperation with the Photographic Collection of the Museum Folkwang Essen. The collection comprises photographs from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries as well as estates, including the holdings of Käthe Buchler, Hans Steffens and Nikolaus Geyer. Early processes such as daguerreotypes, salt‑paper and albumen prints, and Woodburytypes are of particular importance; among the early holdings are works by Hill & Adamson, Felix Nadar and Julia Margaret Cameron. The museum has thus established itself in national and international photography networks.