How do we want to live in the future? Why does music give us strength? Is art allowed to provoke? And what can we learn from history? Culture gives us new ideas, awakens our creative energy. With it, we can travel to foreign worlds at any time..
Table of contents
1. Bachhaus Eisenach - let the music play
2. Bauhaus Museum Weimar - rethinking the world
3. Leuchtenburg - make a wish
4. Kunsthaus Apolda - completely modern
5. Panorama Museum Frankenhausen - World Theater
6. Old synagogue Erfurt - experience history and stories
7. Point Alpha Memorial - History Lessons on the Green Belt
8. Mühlhausen museums - an exciting setting
9. Elisabethenburg in Meiningen - dreaming of foreign worlds
At Bach House in EisenachBach Museum, the largest Bach museum in the world, you can try to get to know the man Johann Sebastian Bach and his unique music: You walk through living rooms that are not the original ones, but probably similar to them. Can study handwritten notes and, above all, listen to Bach - in a walk-through music piece with a 180-degree screen or in so-called bubble chairs with headphones (note: these currently have to be brought by yourself or purchased on site due to hygiene measures!). "Bach took the best compositional techniques of his time and became a master at them," says Jörg Hansen, the museum's director. And, "You just can't get done with Bach." A visit to the Bach House encourages one to feel once again the precious power of great music.
And this is how you get to Eisenach by train: Plan arrival.
How do we want to live, to dwell, to create community? These are the kinds of questions learners asked themselves at the State Bauhaus in Weimar, which was founded in 1919. As a visitor, you can also answer these questions in the newly built, already architecturally spectacular Bauhaus Museum Weimar pursue. Opened in 2019, the building by star architect Heike Hanada is a simple cube on the outside, but surprisingly airy and open on the inside. This is intended to make it easier for visitors to intuitively discover the exhibition. At its center is the world's oldest collection of works by the Bauhaus, which Walter Gropius himself created. The central thesis of the newly conceived exhibition is exciting: that the Bauhaus was less a style of architecture or design than an art school that initiated important social changes. An interesting source of inspiration, therefore, also for all those who now want to think about how the world could change for the better after Corona.
You can find more information here: Classic: The UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Weimar
And this is how you get to Weimar by train: Plan arrival.
Artists from all over the world have been working on the Leuchtenburg near Seitenroda and not far from the porcelain town of Kahla, seven worlds of experience have been created around porcelain: The interactive exhibition "Porcelain Worlds" is dedicated to the "White Gold" in all its facets - its history, its material and its fascination. And there is always something new to discover, so that the show remains lively and surprising. That's why the international jury of the European Museum Council judged it: "One of the most extraordinary and modern exhibitions!" Further highlights: the world's largest vase with a height of eight meters can be marveled at on the Leuchtenburg, visit a unique porcelain church or throw a piece of porcelain including a personal wish into the abyss on the footbridge of wishes. As is well known, broken pieces bring luck, so it's better to wish for something big right away ...
And this is how you get to Seitenroda by train: Plan arrival.
Fancy broadening your horizons - for modern art? Later than planned, but not too late, the exhibition "Pop Art" now opens on May 16 at the Art house Apoldawhich shows changing art exhibitions. Among others, works by Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, Allen Jones, Alex Katz, Roy Lichtenstein, Mel Ramos, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann are on display -" in an exciting dialogue of 80 works," as the Kunsthaus itself writes. The exhibition ends on July 26, 2020, after which a major Chagall exhibition is planned for Apolda from September 20 to December 13. The Kunsthaus Apolda is run by the "Apolda Avantgarde" association and has been putting on top-class, highly acclaimed exhibitions for 25 years.
And this is how you get to Apolda by train: Plan arrival.
In the 1980s, still commissioned by the GDR, the artist Werner Tübke painted for the Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen a 123-meter-long monumental painting entitled "Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany". However, what the Leipzig artist created on the site where a great Peasant War battle raged in 1525 is not a socialist interpretation of the events. Rather, the result is a masterpiece about the basic themes of humanity - about history and faith, about suffering, lust, love, good and evil. At the center of Tübke's work is Thomas Müntzer under a luminous rainbow. He holds the Bundschuh flag lowered. The round, huge painting is an opulent round dance of images full of allusions and quotations. The Leipzig art professor at the College of Graphic Arts and Letterpress Printing integrated the commemoration of the dead of the Peasants' War into a world theater full of allusions and art quotes. It's fun, especially now, to decipher this work of art and ponder whether history is an oppressive return of the same - or not!?
And this is how you get to Bad Frankenhausen by bus and train: Plan arrival.
Jewish life has been part of Thuringia for over 900 years - the Free State will be celebrating this with many anniversary events starting this fall and especially in 2021. But even those who are already visiting the state capital should make time for the Old synagogue in Erfurt take, because it is one of the most impressive museums in the city. The centerpiece of the exhibition is the so-called Erfurt treasure, which was accidentally discovered in 1998 during construction work in the city: It has a proud total weight - about 29.5 kilograms. The largest part is made up of 3,141 silver coins and 14 silver ingots of various sizes and weights. In addition, the find contains over 700 individual pieces of Gothic goldsmith's art, some of excellent workmanship - including a unique Jewish wedding ring from the early 14th century. However, the Old Synagogue not only displays valuable exhibits, it also tells its own eventful architectural history. With the ensemble "Old Synagogue and Mikveh in Erfurt", the city has also officially applied to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Tip: From October 29, 2020 to March 14, 2021, the Old Synagogue Erfurt shows the special exhibition "With this ring ... - Jewish wedding in the Middle Ages".
Further information on Jewish culture and history in Thuringia can be found at here.
And this is how you get to Erfurt by train: Plan arrival.
In an authentic place of history makes the Point Alpha Memorial the Cold War and the division of Germany can be experienced. Point Alpha was one of four U.S. observation bases on the inner-German border in Hesse between Geisa in Thuringia and Rasdorf in Hesse. The site is slightly elevated - which was good at the time, not only for the distant view but also for listening in on radio traffic. Today, the complex includes not only the American base, but also a strip of the original GDR border installations and the "House on the Border" with a permanent exhibition. Parts of the former Kolonnenweg are now the hiking trail "Point Alpha Trail" and the site of the art installation "Path of Hope" with fourteen monumental sculptures.
And this is how you get to Point Alpha in Geisa by bus and train: Plan arrival.
The main focus of the five Mühlhausen museums with its various sites of the history of Mühlhausen and the region as well as Thomas Müntzer, the reformer and peasant war leader who worked here. Particularly impressive: the Museum St. Marien with the Müntzer memorial. Medieval art is exhibited in the main church of the upper city, which is the second largest hall church in Thuringia after Erfurt Cathedral - but the important son of the city is also remembered there. Other museums include the Museum of Cultural History, the Peasants' War Museum in the Kornmarktkirche, the Historic Fortifications and the All Saints' Church Museum. The special feature? Three of the museums are housed in churches, so you can not only study the cultural treasures, but also take in the old, sacred buildings. And the topic of the Peasants' War is also very topical, because it confronts us not least with the question: How can one implement wishes for change in a more peaceful way than the people managed at the time?
And this is how you get to Mühlhausen by train: Plan arrival.
Theater is not possible during the Corona pandemic? Then let's just remember unforgettable productions - for example in the Elisabethenburg in Meiningen with the "Magic World of the Set" exhibition there. Every year, elaborate stage sets from the legendary theater troupe "Die Meininger" are shown there, which toured Europe under the theater duke Georg II at the end of the 19th century and established Meiningen's reputation as a theater city. Currently, the stage set "Ancient Columned Hall" from 1910/11 from William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" can be seen there. In addition, there is an impressive scene lighting program with spoken text passages to the stage design. So everything there is almost as beautiful as in the "real" theater.
And this is how you get to Meiningen by bus and train: Plan arrival.
Cover photo: Thuringia has many authentic cultural sites - such as the Bach House in Eisenach © Ingo Bracke/Bachhaus Eisenach GmbH
