New building of the German Wallpaper Museum


New building of the German Wallpaper Museum


New building of the German Wallpaper Museum


Change of wallpaper: a new museum for Kassel

A new, modern building for the German Wallpaper Museum is currently under construction on Brüder-Grimm-Platz in Kassel. From 2026, large parts of the collection are expected to be on display here on around 1,500 m2 of exhibition space. A large depot with a restoration workshop for the wallpapers is also planned. The foundation stone was laid on June 30, 2023 - exactly 100 years after the first opening of the wallpaper museum.

The new museum occupies a central location in Kassel's city center, which also has a special significance for the history of spatial art: One of the first German wallpaper manufactories was located here between 1815 and 1883. The building of the adjacent historic “northern gatehouse” will also be integrated into the new building in future. The Brothers Grimm lived here from 1814 to 1822 and their work will be commemorated in a museum installation at this location.

Future visitors to the new museum will embark on a chronological tour through 600 years of wallpaper history. The wallpapers are staged as real room designs in 21 cabinets - together with contemporary furniture, decorative arts and historical clothing. There are six thematic sections in total: Gold Leather Wallpaper, Variety of Materials, Early Days of Paper Wallpaper, Panoramic Wallpaper, Wallpaper at the World's Fairs 1851 to 1900 and Modern Wallpaper from 1900 to the 21st Century.The Old Masters Picture Gallery inside Schloss Wilhelmshöhe palace is one of the most important collections of its kind and is internationally renowned. Its history, which spans more than 500 years, goes back to the times of the landgraves and their collections.

The exhibition on its three floors provides an excellent overview of European painting from the late Gothic period to Classicism, with a particular focus on 17th century Dutch and Flemish art, including numerous masterpieces by Rubens, Frans Hals, Van Dyck and Jordaens. Its collection of works by Rembrandt, among these the famous paintings "Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph" and his portrait of Saskia van Uylenburgh, is one of the most extensive anywhere in the world. The German, Italian, French and Spanish Old Masters are represented with works by Dürer, Titian, Poussin and Murillo, for example.

The picture gallery's origins date back to 1509, when Lucas Cranach the Elder created a small winged altar in memory of William II, Landgrave of Hesse. Most of the collection was acquired between 1748 and 1756, when William VIII, Landgrave of Hesse, commissioned his diplomats as well as professional art buyers to purchase approximately 800 paintings in the Netherlands, Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, Venice and Germany. Between 1749 and 1751, a dedicated building for the collection was constructed behind the landgrave's palace between Auehang and Frankfurter Strasse. In 1877, the paintings were moved to a newly erected building at Schöne Aussicht, now known as the Neue Galerie, where they remained until the Second World War began. The Old Masters Picture Gallery moved to Schloss Wilhelmshöhe palace in 1974.