Palace-like, the orphanage rises on Franckeplatz. Then as now, it is the centerpiece of the Francke Foundations. Erected in 1698 as the first building of the school city, it represents a new facet of European Baroque, combining confident representation without extravagant ornamentation and setting the tone for orphanage architecture.

Today, the orphanage is our museum and cultural center. Right from the start, two permanent exhibitions guide you through the history of the foundation and the global impact of Pietism. On the first floor, the former prayer and singing hall surprises with its bright architecture. Today, it enjoys an excellent reputation as a concert hall due to its fantastic acoustics. In the adjacent conference rooms, a photo exhibition showcases the impressive renovation work since the foundations were reestablished in 1991. The second floor is reserved for our changing special exhibitions, which provide insight into important themes of the foundation's history from both a historical and contemporary perspective. Passing through the art and natural history collections in the attic, you reach the balcony via a narrow wooden staircase. Here, a wide view opens up over the impressive ensemble with school buildings from three centuries. There is also a splendid panorama of the Old Town of Halle from here. In the basement, children can explore their own paths in the Krokoseum.

10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

With the redesign of the archaeological department, the third part of the museum's re-conception is completed. The exhibition "Verdammt lang her!" shows the archaeology of the region from the Stone Age to the time of the Alamanni, taking into account the latest research aspects.

Around 100 new loans from the Archaeological Fund Archive of Baden-Württemberg enrich the exhibition and illustrate important individual themes. For example, the gravestone of a Suebian prince found in Bühl in 2011 is shown for the first time. The stone bears the only inscription discovered so far in Baden-Württemberg, providing information about early Roman administration. Important finds from Offenburg and the surrounding area - bronzes, ceramics, jewelry - document the excavation activities of recent decades. But research gaps are also addressed.

The new presentation focuses on archaeological work: How do archaeologists work, how do they determine the age of something, and since when have archaeological finds been of interest to museums?

Hands-On stations, vivid life depictions, and a media station address various aspects of the exhibition and invite visitors to participate and try out.

Closed on Mondays
Tue-Sun 10 am - 5 pm

Die Augen des Krieges

26.03.2025 – 26.09.2025

Polish Institute Düsseldorf, Citadellstr. 7, 40213 Düsseldorf

On February 24, 2022, history was rewritten. For three years, we have been observing events that are changing not only the history of Ukraine and Russia, but also Poland, Europe, and the world.

Polish photographers and journalists document this history by showing both the Russian war against Ukraine, the flow of refugees, and everyday life in the war zone. They make up the largest group among foreign correspondents and are the creators of thousands of photos. Thanks to their work, the war in Ukraine is visible to people even in the most remote parts of the world. It does not appear as a conflict at the end of the world, but as a real, deeply shared tragedy.

This history is also changing Poland on many levels – from demographics to social change and political issues. At the same time, the war is gradually becoming more familiar to us citizens of the free world, and we are getting used to it. The selected photographs – the most representative and meaningful – are compiled into an exhibition and tell a story about the war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine. As material testimonies of this conflict, they can once again stir the growing indifference of public opinion.

The authors of the 12 exhibited photographs are prominent Polish photographers who have been awarded at major photo competitions such as World Press Photo and Pictures of The Year, including Wojciech Grzędziński, Marek Berezowski, Tomasz Lazar, and many others who have dealt with the war in Ukraine. The exhibition is complemented by descriptions of the personal war experiences of the photographers written by Magdalena Rigamonti.

Curator: Ewa Meissner

Text author: Magdalena Rigamonti

Graphic design: Maciej Jabłoński

Producer: Jarosław Włodarczyk / Press Club Polska

Partner in presenting the exhibition at the Polish Institute in Düsseldorf: Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Cologne and Consulate General of Ukraine in Düsseldorf

Photos by Patryk Jaracz, Agata Grzybowska, Jędrzej Nowicki, Tomasz Lazar, Maciek Nabrdalik, Maciej Stanik, Wojciech Grzędziński, Marek M. Berezowski

Tue, Wed and Fri 11 am - 5 pm. Thu 11 am - 7 pm

Permanent Exhibition Nature and Geology

The sensory, colorful, exciting, and informative family exhibition awakens interest in nature in our surroundings and is a space for exploration for visitors both big and small.

 

Nature

In the natural history section, questions like "Is the deer the female of the stag?", "Why do birds have beaks?", or "Do ducks get cold feet?" are answered vividly and in detail. The exhibition welcomes its visitors in the large, atmospheric attic with open landscape scenarios on the themes of forest, land, and river.

A huge maple tree in autumn colors seems to grow out of the wall and overlooks the detailed forest landscape. Here, you can find animals such as badgers, deer, the shy wildcat, and a variety of forest birds.

The meadow also offers numerous discoveries: the hawk peeks through the grass, you can find crawling creatures under the stone, and even the mole has found its spot.

The river landscape is populated by local fish, mussels, and crabs, with ducks and other birds comfortably settled along the shore.

A large number of hands-on stations, games, and experiments invite participation: for instance, you can listen to bird songs, feel fur, or examine snail shells under a magnifying glass. If you're curious about how stuffed animals are made, you can learn about it at the taxidermist's worktable. You can relax and browse through a colorful selection of children's books in the cozy moss bed while listening to various forest sounds or just unwind.

 

Geology

In the geological section at the very top under the museum's roof, questions like "Can rocks glow?", "Is a pencil made of lead?", or "Is there a silver treasure in the Black Forest?" are answered vividly and in detail here as well.

Is time travel even possible? Yes, with us! With the time machine, you can journey to different geological eras. You step in, choose an era, and zoom off, for example, to the Carboniferous period. Upon arrival, you learn about the landscape, climate, and flora and fauna of that time.

Next up is the reconstructed gallery: here you'll learn that coal, iron ore, and even silver were mined in numerous pits near Offenburg.

Finally, you enter the exhibition's treasure trove, the mineral cabinet. Here, you can admire beautiful minerals with melodious names like agate, limonite, or psilomelane, shimmering in all colors and occurring in bizarre forms. Some of these minerals even glow under blacklight.

The permanent exhibition Forest - Land - River encourages exploring interesting connections and asking new questions. Sensory, colorful, exciting, and informative, the presentation offers a suitable platform for youthful curiosity and creates a stimulating and child-friendly space that adults will also enjoy. The exhibition answers all questions vividly and with lively texts, many of which can be heard on the audioguide, available for free at the information desk.

The exhibition is bilingual in German and French.

 

Closed on Mondays
Tue-Sun 10 am - 5 pm

Permanent Exhibition Urban History

The urban history exhibition showcases the political and economic path of Offenburg from the 1848 Revolution to the economic miracle of the 1950s and 60s.

With the beginning of the 1848 Revolution, the urban history exhibition also starts, taking the visitor through the times of upheaval and change in Offenburg and the region.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Offenburg is a small town with just under 2,400 inhabitants. 170 years later, there are already 33,000 citizens. During this period, the city experiences industrialization, two revolutions, three wars, two inflations, emigration and immigration, dictatorship, and democratic new beginnings.

Four main themes are focused on:

• History of democracy

• Migration

• Mobility

• Economic history

The exhibition showcases the political and economic path of Offenburg into modernity, from the 1848 Revolution to the economic miracle of the 1950s and 60s. It combines treasures from the collections with modern media and playful elements, such as an animation on emigration to North America, audio stations, and film sequences.



Photo: Karl Schlessmann

Closed on Mondays
Tue-Sun 10 am - 5 pm

Playing, laughing, being loud, romping, doing nothing – and that in an exhibition house! From September 4, 2024, BAUBAU invites exactly that. In the play space for children designed by artist Kerstin Brätsch, more is allowed than forbidden. Colorful wallpapers, structures, objects, and a range of “Loose Parts” form spaces on the ground floor of the Gropius Bau that do not impose fixed guidelines but are determined by the activities of the children. They dictate the direction and form of what happens here. Thus, this place becomes a space of possibilities that can change day by day.

BAUBAU will launch in September 2024 in a prototype version and will continue to develop and grow over the coming years both inside and outside the Gropius Bau – in close exchange with the children and their wishes, as this is their place.

The Play
All children have the urge to play. This is how they learn to understand themselves and the world. Especially open, self-determined play is of great significance for emotional and social development. The educational concept for BAUBAU is therefore based on the principles of free play: Here, there is time, space, and permission for children to follow their own needs and interests. They are accompanied by playworkers – trained staff who create a safe and supportive environment where children can play freely.

 
The Art
BAUBAU playfully questions what a museum or an art institution should be. The comprehensive spatial design developed by Kerstin Brätsch is full of references and inspirations: elements from her previous works, such as marbling, paintings, or stucco marble work, reappear here in altered forms and materialities. The wallpapers, curtains, fabrics, seating furniture, and climbing structures are inhabited by dinosaurs, fantastical beings, termite mounds, and abstract elements. With their strange, funny, and perhaps a bit eerie shapes, they create an open framework for free play.

Kerstin Brätsch's practice is designed to allow and incorporate influences from outside. While she has previously collaborated with artists or artisans, she now does so in a completely different way with children: She invites the children to reshape and further develop the space according to their own ideas and visions, without the influence of the artist in unpredictable ways.

Mon, Wed, Thu, Fri 12:00–18:00
Sat, Sun 11:00–18:00
Tue closed

The main building of the State Kunsthalle Karlsruhe is closed for extensive renovation. However, significant parts of the collection are now visible to the public again – as guests at the ZKM | Karlsruhe.

The Kunsthalle showcases paintings and sculptures spanning from the late Middle Ages to the present on around 2000 sqm – a cross-section of the collection featuring popular masterpieces by Matthias Grünewald and Hans Baldung Grien, by Rembrandt, Rubens, and Chardin, by Cézanne, Gauguin, and Beckmann, Max Ernst, René Magritte, and Joan Miró, as well as works by Gerhard Richter, Pia Fries, and Karin Sander.

In performative video works, some of them community productions with Tiago Mata Machado, the Brazilian artist Cinthia Marcelle isolates everyday, routine movements and work processes from their functional and production-oriented context. The mostly collaboratively participatory situations are transformed into poetic, metaphorical images that put established routines of social interaction and a performance-oriented logic of modern societies into question.

The exhibition Bodies in Motion – Form in the Making contextualizes the performative, mostly based on simple action instructions performance-based video works of Cinthia Marcelle for the first time with icons of the American post-minimalist dance and performance practice of the 1960s/70s such as Yvonne Rainer, Bruce Nauman, Suzanne Harris, and the performative-participatory approach of the minimalist sculptures of the German artist Charlotte Posenenske.

The exhibition is curated by Anna Roberta Goetz.

In the public tour, you will learn about the production of Meissen porcelain at various workstations in the show workshop. After the tour, you can individually visit the Museum of the Meissen Porcelain Foundation.

Using traditional techniques, all Meissen porcelain is still produced today by hand. The tour through the show workshop provides insights into manufacturing and design.

The tour takes place at 11:30 & 12:30.

The rose is a fascinating flower. Not only is it an ornament for any garden and wonderfully fragrant – no, it has also influenced wide parts of life with its symbolic power, such as love, politics, art, mythology, religion, and much more. Furthermore, rose oil and rose water are used in the cosmetics and food industries, and 42 percent of all cut flowers sold are roses, with cultivation in non-European countries and trade being problematic.

As particularly beautiful flowering plants and an indispensable part of the ecosystem, roses can also raise awareness of the pressing issues of the present, such as biodiversity and conservation, and thus the climate problem. All of this is at the center of the exhibition on the cultural history of the rose, while of course the plant and its role in garden culture will not be overlooked.
Interesting objects from the fields of fashion, design, art, as well as everyday life, are meant to convey a sense of the allure that the rose has exerted and continues to exert – even with its dark side.

Scent stations promise an experience for the senses, and several interactive stations make the exhibition an experience for the whole family.

Sponsored by the MWK and the Lüneburg Landscape Association, the VR Foundation of the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken in Northern Germany, Volksbank Celle, branch of the Hannoversche Volksbank, and the Museumsverein Celle e.V.

Tue - Sun 11 AM - 5 PM

Html tags: If you have an action code, please enter it FIRST in the corresponding field and THEN select the number of tickets in the price tier.

The most popular family fun in southern Lower Saxony!

You can expect popular, well-known, and completely new, huge attractions. Your favorite park presents you with great shows, lots of action to participate in, a beautiful Mediterranean beer garden, and a Caribbean beach bar. We play outside and inside in our large indoor and outdoor areas and are independent of the weather.

Have fun all day - be right in the middle of the turbulent Circus-Land.

Hoch hinaus: Fahrten auf den Rathausturm

Wer schon immer mal den Blick über die Stadt genießen wollte, hat nun die Gelegenheit dazu: Der Wilhelmshavener Rathausturm kann an bestimmten Terminen zwischen 13 und 16 Uhr kostenpflichtig besichtigt werden. Alle 20 Minuten geht’s in Kleingruppen mit dem Fahrstuhl auf den rund 49 Meter hohen Turm, um die Aussicht über Wilhelmshaven zu genießen. Der Weg nach oben ist allerdings nicht barrierefrei, da die Aussichtsplattform nur über eine Treppe zu erreichen ist, die eigenständig bewältigt werden muss.

Zeittickets für die Turmfahrten müssen vorab erworben werden. Treffpunkt ist am Seiteneingang, der sich rechts neben der großen Treppe am Hauptportal befindet.

***Ausgebucht***

„Nur das ist unser Streben: Kunst in Fülle
Niemals soll euer Widerwille wallen“
W. Shakespeare

Wir freuen uns eine ganz besondere Veranstaltung ankündigen zu dürfen: Ein Sommernachtstraum im idyllischen Ambiente unseres Schlossgartens! Vor 20 Jahren wurde dieses zeitlose Meisterwerk dort bereits aufgeführt und hat die Herzen vieler Oldenburger*innen erobert. Nun knüpfen wir an diese Tradition an, während wir zugleich eine ganz neue Inszenierung präsentieren.

Erleben Sie mit uns eine magische Nacht, während Sie sich inmitten der zauberhaften Kulisse des Schlossgartens zu einem Picknick niederlassen.

Aber worum geht es eigentlich? Um Liebe natürlich! A liebt B, die aber nicht A, sondern C und C natürlich A - usw. nach dem Motto: du liebst mich nicht, ich lieb dich doch. Das war zu Shakespeares Zeiten nicht anders als heute. Chaos also! Um das zu klären - auf in den Schlossgarten!

Zum Glück liebt der Herzog die Richtige. Welcher Herzog? Na, der von Oldenburg natürlich, der Peter Ludwig. Derselbe, der den Schlossgarten der Natur, also der Hunte-Niederung, entrissen hat, was Oberon und Titania…nein davon später.

Der Herzog will also heiraten. Ruft ganz Athen? Nein, ruft ganz Oldenburg zu den Festlichkeiten! Ein Fest! Im Schlossgarten! Ein Picknick im Grünen! Weckt überall den Geist der Fröhlichkeit!

Also Oberon und Titania, die Herrscher der Elfen und Elben zanken sich. Das bringt die Natur in Unordnung und deshalb muss die Liebe her. Nicht zwischen den beiden, nein der Mensch muss sich mit der Natur versöhnen. Zumindest im Traum. In Zettels Traum sozusagen. Wer ist denn nun wieder dieser Zettel?

Zettel gehört zu einer Laientheatergruppe, die zur Hochzeit die „Komödie von Pyramus und Thispe“ spielen wollen. Wo? Im Schlossgarten natürlich! Also: Packen Sie Ihr Picknick ein, bringen Sie Freunde und Familie mit und lassen Sie sich von der Kunst des Theaters verzaubern.

Einlass: 20:00h

Restkarten gegebenenfalls an der Abendkasse ab 20:00 Uhr erhältlich.

You are booking a DAY TICKET for the visit to the permanent exhibition of the museum FLUXUS+. The last admission is at 5:00 PM. For a relaxed visit, please plan at least one hour.

After admission, you will have plenty of time to explore the museum.
Opening hours Wed - Sun 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM

The museum FLUXUS+ in Potsdam showcases modern art with a focus on Fluxus, Wolf Vostell, and four contemporary artists. The collection includes works by Emmett Williams, Ben Patterson, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Mary Bauermeister, and Niki de Saint-Phalle, in addition to Wolf Vostell.

The free exhibitions in the atrium, a museum café with terrace, and the attractive museum shop make the museum FLUXUS+ a popular cultural meeting point by the Havel.

Last admission 4:00 PM

On the historic grounds of the open-air museum, we expect a string quartet this year that connects tradition and modernity, classical music with tango and the Beatles, and as if that weren't enough, the four young musicians also sing. The Orbis Quartet combines classical repertoire from Schumann to Monteverdi with specially arranged works from various musical styles. The ensemble consists of: Tilmann Hussla (violin), Julia Yoo Soon Gröning (violin), Kundri Lu Emma Schäfer (viola), and Felix Eugen Thiemann (cello). All members of the ensemble studied at renowned universities, including in Berlin and Salzburg. Founded in 2014, the quartet quickly won the 1st prize and the special prize at the International Beethoven Competition in Krakow, as well as the 2nd prize at the International Brahms Competition in Pörtschach. This was followed by radio live recordings with Bayerischer Rundfunk, rbb-Berlin, and NDR Hamburg, as well as invitations to festivals, including in Salzburg, Copenhagen, and Montreal. Look forward to a special opening concert.

Admission at 6 PM, including free entry to the open-air museum, free use of the shuttle buses.

... with your favorite books - Reading Evening

The LOFT will become a reading room! Feel free to swap and chat, and maybe even read something aloud. We invite you to become part of our book club and look forward to a pleasant exchange.

Free admission!

As a child, he ate noodles, later it was called pasta, and nowadays it's just carbohydrates. It used to be called "flower shop", now it's "vegan butcher". And yes, there are wines that get better with time, but there are also times that get better with wine. So, cheers! MICHAEL RANZ walks in his 4th solo program in the footsteps of our ancestors. 2000 years in two hours! But beware, this evening reaches places in the brain where the TV doesn't even reach.

Der Vorverkauf endet ca. 3 Stunden vor Veranstaltungsbeginn. Für den Fall, dass die Veranstaltung ausverkauft ist: Gelegentlich haben Gäste eine Karte zu viel. Diese versuchen wir an der Abendkasse zu vermitteln. Wartelisten werden erst an der Abendkasse erstellt.

KÖRPERWELTEN – Anatomy of Happiness

The body as a place of happiness
Great love, a carefree life, true friendship... we all strive for happiness. But have you ever wondered how happiness actually arises? Why it is so important for our lives and why we can’t get enough of it? Or why we can’t permanently preserve happiness?

Like every action, perception, or sensation, the feeling of happiness is also a result of certain processes in our body. In the Heidelberg KÖRPERWELTEN Museum, you can discover what exactly lies beneath your skin with real anatomical specimens and which structures are involved in the emergence of the feeling of happiness. In doing so, you will learn a lot of interesting things about your organ functions and about health in general. And you will be surprised at how versatile positive or negative emotions affect the entire body. Because everything we experience, feel, and do or don’t do with our body ultimately has an impact on it sooner or later.

An exhibition that will change your perspective on yourself.

Last entry: 5:00 PM