The Ethnologisches Museum Celebrates Its 150th Anniversary

**Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde in Königgrätzer Straße, at the corner of Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, 1886.** © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum

**Birdseye view of the museum complex in Dahlem, early 1970s.** © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum

**Newly constructed building complex in Dahlem (view from the northeast), 1973** © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum

The Ethnologisches Museum Celebrates Its 150th Anniversary

27.12.2023
Ethnologisches Museum

The Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde (Royal Museum for Ethnology) was founded as the predecessor of today’s Ethnologisches Museum exactly 150 years ago. In addition to a special volume it is publishing this spring, during the coming year the Ethnologisches Museum will also examine its past and future through various events.

On 27 December 1873, the responsible ministry granted official permission to erect a separate building for the ethnological collections, which at the time were still housed in the Neues Museum on the Museumsinsel. Founding director Adolf Bastian was interested in creating an unmatched collection of humanity’s material culture, with the aim of preserving things he believed would be lost because of cultural change and the effects of colonisation, missionary work and modernisation. The founding collection comprised holdings assembled over more than 200 years in the Brandenburg-Prussian Kunstkammer that had been displayed in the Neues Museum since 1859.

The Ethnologisches Museum’s building was not opened until 1886, 13 years later, in what was then Königgrätzer Straße (now Stresemannstraße). However, during that intervening period the collection had already grown from around 5,000 objects to over 40,000. Since then, the museum has experienced an eventful history, eventually leading to the Humboldt Forum via its longstanding location in Dahlem.

Special Edition Marking the 150th Anniversary

On its 150 anniversary, the Ethnologisches Museum is examining its history in a special volume compiled by the Baessler Archives. The publication provides information about current and future undertakings, including the large-scale project Das Kollaborative Museum (The Collaborative Museum), which will offer important insights regarding a future approach to dealing with the collections. The project focuses on a forward-looking reorganisation of many areas of the museum (such as research, exhibition planning, and conservation-restoration) to establish greater openness and collaboration with international partners.