Research & Conservation

The Department of Restoration, Digitisation and Documentation is responsible for all the Städtische Museen Freiburg. Research projects, care of the collections and preparation of the exhibitions all come together in this department. The department also oversees the Digital Collection of the Städtische Museen Freiburg, which serves as a comprehensive source of information on a range of subjects, including art and cultural history, archaeology, ethnology and natural history. The department's work is carried out by the department's own conservation workshops, which cater for a variety of materials and disciplines including paper, textiles, arts and crafts, archaeology, ethnology, paintings and sculptures, and in the rooms of the Central Art Depository.

Conservation

The central purpose of a museum is to preserve art and cultural heritage. All other activities, including collecting, research, exhibition and communication, are secondary to this primary task. The Städtische Museen Freiburg are committed to preserving knowledge in the form of artefacts representing art, cultural history, archaeology, natural history and ethnology for future generations and to making them accessible to the public. Preventive conservation is of central importance here. The aim is not to repair damage caused by negative external influences, but to prevent such damage from occurring in the first place. Objects are protected using controlled environmental conditions that minimise damaging factors. The aim is to protect the object in all areas where it is displayed or stored during its time in the museum. Conservators from six specialist areas – Painting, Paper, Textiles, Crafts, Ethnology and Archaeology – as well as a conservator for natural history objects, work closely with the curators of each museum.

Central Art Depository

The Central Art Depository of the Städtische Museen Freiburg was inaugurated in 2012. The building, which is pioneering in Germany in terms of construction and energy standards for depositories, covers an area of more than 5,000 square metres and provides space for more than 200,000 works of art and objects from the city's collections. It also houses numerous works of art and cultural assets belonging to the Freiburg Foundation Administration and the Archdiocese.
The elongated, two-storey building is built specifically to house art treasures and designed to meet the specific needs of the exhibition organisers. The building's generously proportioned rooms, wide corridors and weather-protected delivery area facilitate the convenient transport of objects. The building's technology maintains a largely constant air temperature and humidity. Sophisticated security technology and an ingenious shelving system ensure the protection and smooth logistics of the stored objects. Despite the complex air-conditioning system, the depository is a zero-energy building, keeping its promise to conserve resources.

Digital Collection

The Digital Collection of the Städtische Museen Freiburg is regularly updated and contains a wealth of artefacts, including sculptures from Freiburg Minster, Black Forest paintings, early medieval treasures, modern works of art, dinosaur fossils and rare rocks. Each object is documented by illustrations, text and a wealth of metadata, providing an invaluable insight into the museums' holdings. The aim is to provide open access to knowledge. As a result, images of works owned by the Städtische Museen Freiburg that are now in the public domain can be downloaded and used for private, scholarly and creative purposes.
Thematic albums are also available for individual temporary exhibitions and areas of the collection. These are supplemented by additional information on the provenance of objects, bibliographical references and new multimedia narratives. Detailed profiles also offer biographical information about collectors and former owners of museum objects.
There are currently around 800 highlights from the collections available for presentation.

Onlinesammlung

Contact

Anja Alt, Abteilungsleitung

Restaurierung, Digitalisierung, Dokumentation

eMail anja.alt@freiburg.de

Telefon +49 (0)761 201 - 2533

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