Modern, more open, more accessible – the Alpine Museum of the German Alpine Club is being rebuilt and is expected to remain closed until summer 2023. Happily, no one has to do without cultural mountain highlights as it’s now available virtually.
Currently, the library holdings, the archive, the material, graphic and art collections are moving into an external storage facility. From June, the reconstruction will begin which will modernise the museum and will offer larger and more open exhibition and library spaces.
Melanie Grimm, vice-president of the DAV, said, “Our library gets a prominent place in the building. This gives visitors a new quality of stay at the Alpine Museum. In addition, we are finally creating accessible access for disabled people.”
However, no one has to give up mountain culture during the closure. Friederike Kaiser, Head of the Culture Division at DAV, added, “Our employees have been very diligent over the past few weeks and have created a varied, digital offering.” A special highlight is the virtual tour through the anniversary exhibition, ‘The Mountains and We’, developed by Thomas Rychly.
The exhibition shows how preferences, attitudes and values changed over the course of more than 150 years, how people moved in the mountains and with whom they were travelling. A journey through one and a half centuries of mountain history ranges from the joy of discovery to the difficulty alpinism to the individualisation of mountain sports.
Kaiser said, “Many of them were presented to the public for the first time in 2019 and offer a new look at how the Alpine Club developed and the interest in the mountains and the in-the-mountain walk shifted.” As an example of the huge wealth of mountain culture held, these numbers are amazing:
- about 44000 photos and photo albums, among them about 11000 landscape photos, 10000 hut photos, 4500 mountaineers and 500 female mountaineers.
- 17000 objects – 7500 prints, watercolours and paintings, about 200 backpacks, 50 pairs trousers, 100 pairs of skis and around 250 pairs of boots.
