Freiburgs New Augustiner Museum

I had the chance to get an exclusive tour by the head of the Augustinermuseum Mr. Stockhausen with some of the former councilors. When I was on the city council the renovation and some budget overrans were controversial, especially since it was a time in which we had to make budget cuts in other aeras and tried to renovate a lot of Freiburgs run down schools.

The museum is located in a former monastery which was rebuilt between 1914 and 1923 and renovated from 2005 onwards. The core of the museum is a sculpture hall with four-metre-high stone prophets from Freiburg Cathedral and a church organ, made by the famous Freiburg organ company Welte-Mignon, with an exterior from the 1730s and a library of art and cultural history.

It is really worth a visit and I was impressed not only by the exhibits but by the interior spaces created by Frankfurt architect Christoph Mäckler. The renovation added new spaces like the cellar and the attic, it divded the main former church space and we added a new portal.

Despite the renovation the

building has not lost anything of its character as a monastery. Besides the prophets the museum is full of fantastic medieval, renaissance and baroque art a lot of it from the Freiburg Cathedral.

To the Website of the Museum and more pictures at my flickr stream