Ziegelmuseum

Description

The Ziegelmuseum in Bad Herrenalb focuses on the cultural history of roof coverings and the brickmaking craft.

The museum is housed in the former garden pavilion of the Kurhaus, which was built in 1860, and is located in the old monastic precinct of the spa town of Bad Herrenalb in the Calw district of Baden-Württemberg. It was founded in 2006.

The house is run by volunteers and has made the educational presentation of the history of roofs and tiles, as well as the social history of brickmakers, its main task. In addition to the permanent exhibition there are rooms for smaller temporary exhibitions and a space for creative activities.

On roughly 100 square metres of exhibition space, about 180 so‑called Feierabendziegel are on display. These handmade decorative motif bricks were produced as the last bricks of a working day and were decorated while the clay was still wet with ornaments, dates, marks, symbols or texts. On their reverse sides, alongside decorative patterns, there are also accounts, coarse sayings and aphorisms; for example, a 17th‑century brick from Maulbronn Monastery bears the words “Whoever forgets the tip, may the devil immediately eat him,” and another piece carries the inscription “Snip, snap, and the thread of life is cut.” The majority of the objects on display come from an extensive private collection; they are supplemented by Feierabendziegel from the monastic Herrenalber Ziegelhütte, which rank among the earliest dated bricks of the 15th century in Europe.