Естественнонаучный музей Вены: История и коллекции

Museum in Vienna, Austria
The Natural History Museum Vienna (Naturhistorisches Museum Wien) is a large natural history museum located in Vienna, Austria. The NHM Vienna is one of the largest museums and non university research institutions in Austria and an important center of excellence for all matters relating to natural sciences. The museum's 39 exhibition rooms cover 8,460 square meters and present more than 100,000 objects. It is home to 30 million objects available to more than 60 scientists and numerous guest researchers who carry out basic research in a wide range of topics related to human sciences, earth sciences, and life sciences. The Index Herbariorum code assigned to this museum is W and it is used when citing housed herbarium specimens.

The earliest collections of the Natural History Museum Vienna date back more than 250 years. It was the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, Maria Theresa’s husband, who in 1750 purchased what was at the time the world's largest collection of natural history objects from the Florentine scholar and scientist Jean de Baillou. This was the first step on the road to creating the Natural History Museum Vienna. Baillou's collection comprised 30,000 objects, including rare fossils, snails, mussels, and corals, as well as valuable minerals and precious stones. Emperor Francis, who founded the Schönbrunn zoo in 1752 and the botanical garden in 1753, also organized the first scientific overseas expedition. In 1755 he commissioned Nicolaus Joseph Jacquin to travel to the Caribbean, the Antilles, Venezuela, and Colombia. Jacquin returned from this expedition with many live animals and plants for the zoo and the botanical garden, as well as 67 cases full of other items of interest from the natural world. After the Emperor's death, Maria Theresa gave the natural science collection to the state and opened it up to the general public. Thus she created the first museum in line with the principles and visions of the Enlightenment. It was Maria Theresa who brought the mineralogist Ignaz von Born to Vienna. Born, who had developed a new method of extracting precious metals, was tasked with classifying and expanding the collections. To this end he had minerals from many different regions sent to Vienna, where they were added to the collection. Under the leadership of Ignaz von Born the cabinet of natural history quickly developed into a center of practical research.

To mark the marriage of his daughter Leopoldine to the heir to the Portuguese throne, Dom Pedro, Emperor Francis II sponsored a scientific expedition to her new home country of Brazil in 1817. Two Austrian frigates accompanied the archduchess on her journey to Rio de Janeiro. Those taking part in the expedition, carried out under the scientific direction of the head of the history collection, included the researchers Johann Mikan and Johann Emmanuel, as well as the taxidermist Johann Natterer and the landscape painter Thomas Ender. The expedition lasted 18 years and aimed to collect all plants, animals, and minerals of scientific interest and bring them back to Vienna.

The Natural History Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts were commissioned by Emperor Franz Joseph I (1830–1916) and designed by the architects Gottfried Semper (1803–1879) and Carl Hasenauer (1833–1894). The two museums have identical exteriors and face each other. They were originally designed to be part of a much larger project – an Imperial Forum – which was never realized in full. Work on the Natural History Museum lasted from 1871 until 1881. On August 10, 1889, Emperor Franz Joseph himself officially opened the museum. Its façade, designed by Gottfried Semper, shows figures and statues representing progress in the field of natural sciences and the power of nature. Below the dome, the imperial dedication in golden letters reads: "To the realm of nature and its exploration".

The historicism style of art and architecture was very popular in 19th century Austria. The Natural History Museum Vienna incorporates stylistic elements from many past periods, in particular the Renaissance. Work began on the building in 1871 and the facade was finished in 1881. It is around 170 meters long and 70 meters wide, comprising two courtyards that are each surrounded by working and exhibition rooms. The roof is crowned with a 65 m dome bearing a huge bronze statue of the Greek sun god Helios, a symbol of the life giving element without which nature would not exist. The upper and middle levels (mezzanine and first floor) of the intricately decorated facade display allegorical and mythological figures representing key elements of the universe and its discovery and understanding by man. On the balustrade visitors can see sculptures of researchers and scientists who represent the continuing progress of human knowledge. These fundamental ideas are also the basis for the sculptures and paintings in the Dome Hall and the grand staircase; the highlight here is Hans Canon's ceiling fresco, The Circle of Life. The internal structure of the building is dictated by the systematic organization of the exhibition and the individual departments. The mezzanine covers inanimate nature (Department of Mineralogy, Halls 1–5), sediments and traces of life early in Earth's history (Department of Geology & Paleontology, Halls 6–10), early human history (Department of Prehistory, Halls 11–13) and human development (Department of Anthropology, Halls 14–15). The first floor presents the huge diversity of the animal world (Zoological Departments, Halls 22–39) as well as the fascinating realm of the Earth's smallest organisms ("Microtheater", Hall 21). The exhibits themselves are displayed in a systematic order according to how closely they are related to each other or their chronological position in the history of Planet Earth or human beings.

The 100 square metre ceiling painting above the grand staircase depicts "The Cycle of Life." Hans Canon (1829–1885) had the freedom to choose his subject and painted a dramatic allegory of the rise and decline of humanity. In addition, humankind serving as the central theme of this painting further fulfills Hochstetter’s concept. The cycle of growing and passing away in human existence is presented in a circular composition. It reflects the idea of the fight for existence, which dominated scientific thought at that time. At the same time the animal world was brought into this cycle as well: on one side "mankind made the Earth its servant" (it catches a catfish with its trident); on the other side, however, nature wins the upper hand (a vulture guards its prey). Nevertheless, mankind stands in the center of these events: a man, wrapped in a red cloth, holds an hourglass (presumably an allusion to Chronos, the god of time).

In 39 display halls with an area of 8,700 m2 the collections give an overview of the diversity of life on Earth. The order of the halls is based on the classification values of the 19th century: humans as the "apex of creation" were originally presented in a large part of the mezzanine with anthropology, ethnology, and prehistory. On the first floor the visitor was to be guided from the "most simple" through to the "most consummate evolutionary animals". For this reason, the apes, as representatives of the primates, are found at the end of the tour. This systematic concept of the collections has been preserved to the present even though today evolution is no longer seen as development toward perfection, but as development toward diversity. The furnishings of the display halls, with display cases of dark, carved wood, are mostly originals from the opening days of the museum, from the plans of Ferdinand von Hochstetter. This historical presentation of the collections is almost unique in the world today.

The mezzanine is decorated with more than 100 oil paintings, illustrations which complement the objects displayed in the halls. Some halls are additionally decorated with figures. This interplay between decoration and display objects gives the Natural History Museum Vienna is a unique artistic presentation. The original rhinestone copy of the Florentine Diamond is kept in Hall IV.

In 2022 the Museum returned the remains of about 64 Māori and Moriori people, collected by Andreas Reischek, to Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, New Zealand.