STADTMUSEUM HERZOGENAURACH

Description

The Stadtmuseum Herzogenaurach presents the town's approximately thousand-year history and at the same time documents the development of the locally based companies Adidas, Puma and the Schaeffler-Gruppe.

The museum is housed in the former Spital zum Heiligen Geist on Kirchenplatz. The late-medieval half-timbered building dates back to a foundation by Conrad Reyter in 1508 and is protected as an architectural monument. The massive, multi-storey structure stands on a ground floor of dressed stone and has two vaulted cellars; above them rises the multi-storey timber-framed construction.

Museum activities began as early as 1908, when the Historische Verein opened a first exhibition of craftsmen’s tools and folkloric objects in the town tower. Losses to the collection occurred during and after the Second World War as a result of looting. From 1969 the exhibits were housed in the former Amtsschloss and were restored on a voluntary basis by the Herzogenauracher Heimatverein. In autumn 2000 the museum reopened in its current building.

Across more than 700 square meters, the museum's "Town History" exhibition is devoted to the everyday life of the agrarian townspeople, the organization of the municipal community and the rights of the territorial lord. Particular attention is paid to the war and crisis years of the first half of the 20th century and to the subsequent establishment of new industry that made the town internationally known. In the "Crafts and Industry" section, exhibits illustrate economic development from the Middle Ages to the structural change after 1945. A focus is placed on the Herzogenaurach-rooted companies Adidas and Puma. A private collection, supplemented since 1968, comprises applied arts, bourgeois domestic furnishings, graphic prints and rare printed works. In the former attic sacred paintings and sculptures are on display.