Kunsthalle Fridericianum

Profile

The halls on the ground floor hosted a collection of antiques and a "gallery with modern statues". This gallery consisted of a hall with copies of antiques made out of marble, bronze and plaster and cabinets with displayed statuettes, cameos and vases.

The Beletage domiciled the Hessian county library. Like a splendiferous gallery it reached from one main wing to the other and could actually store over 100.000 books. Both side wings on the upper floor gave access to an etching cabinet, a room for calligraphy and a hall for cartographies, as well as rooms displaying scientific instruments.

On May 23rd 1779, after 10 years of construction, the opening of the first public museum building on the European continent - the museum Fridericianum - was celebrated. Almost thirty years later the youngest brother of Napoleon, Jérôme Bonaparte, by then king of Westphalia, converted the museum into the "Palais des Ètats", a house of parliament with representation rooms. After his banishment in 1813, the building was turned back into a museum, but then no longer followed the idea of art and science penned by the dynasty, instead now fully concentrated on its museal collection.

But due to the Prussian leadership in 1913 this public service was also shut down and the Fridericianum lost its museal mission. Almost all the collection pieces were transferred to Berlin , the Prussian centre. Henceforth it was a library until it went up in flames in 1941. 

A good decade later the ruins of the Fridericianum became the cultural heart of the first documenta exhibition, founded by Arnold Bode in 1955. The successful history of documenta is well-known; its 12^th edition just closed the doors on September 12 ^th 2007. 

For the development of the Kunsthalle Fridericianum it is of major interest that it is used since 1988 as a space for permanent and temporary art shows which take place in-between the world exhibition documenta . "Kassel does not have to turn off the light anymore after documenta ", like Harald Szeemann used to comment in 1972.