One of my favorite things to do in my free time when I am exploring a new city is go to museums. No matter where you are, each collection is going to be unique. This last weekend, I went to two museums in Leipzig, the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst and the Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, both of which I would thoroughly recommend.
The Grassi Musuem für Angewandte Kunst (decorative/applied arts) is a short walk from the Augustusplatz tram stop, and easily accessible both from the apartment I am staying in and the building in which we are taking our classes. While decorative arts are one of my personal favorite subjects, because they encompass both the local and the global, the idea of a decorative arts museum appears to be a little less common stateside (the Winterthur Museum in Wilmington, DE would probably be the closest comparison). Generally, when someone says decorative or applied arts, they are referring to the aesthetic qualities of a functional object, such as furniture or tableware. This might sound boring to many, but have you ever looked at your coffee mug in the morning and wondered why it looks that way?
I did not get to see everything I wanted to see (such as the Asian art collection), but I did spend an ample amount of time exploring their sumptuous main exhibit of European decorative arts, with an emphasis in many places on German and Germanic objects for obvious reasons. Although the exhibit ambitiously spans temporally from classical antiquity to fin-de-siècle, I probably lingered the most in the early modern collection of drinkware and tableware, and I was happy to see some unique samples of 18th-century Meißen wares.
Another day, I meandered over to the Stadtzentrum (“city center” – also very easily accessible via public transit) in order to go to the Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Altes Rathaus (Leipzig City Museum). Those with a German language background will know that “altes Rathaus” means “old city hall”, and the museum is on the upper floors of this renaissance-era building, while small souvenir shops and antiquarian bookshops populate its bottom level.
Although the museum was relatively small compared to the Grassi in Leipzig or the Jüdisches Museum in Berlin, I still learned quite a bit about the city’s history as a mercantile center connecting central Europe with the larger world. I also learned that this region is valuable for archeologists, because its swampy ground preserves certain types of perishable artifacts, such as leather, particularly well.
Something important for me is being able to carve out as much time and energy as possible to explore the unique experiences that museums and historic buildings have to offer. As an American with a primary interest in American history, there is something truly eye-opening about the chance to see these incredibly old objects in their sites of origin or hyper-regional contexts. It provides an interesting counterbalance to their stories – much like mine at this very moment – when they leave their home regions and travel the world.