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greater than the mere sum of its component parts, and at the National Motor Museum the Beaulieu Motorworks demonstrates triumphantly the success of its long term policies for collecting historic motoring components and marketing paraphernalia in archival condition as well as the more glamorous and often heavily restored vehicles themselves.

The Beaulieu Motorworks includes a blacksmith's forge in which so many replacements for early motoring components were made, and this visibly reinforces both the historical origins of the garage and the overlaps in function, in country garages, with agricultural engineers and other establishments now operated as distinct, separate commercial enterprises. Furthermore, the brilliant recreation of the bicycle repair shop alongside the garage reinforces the links between bicyclles and the early motor trade. These crowded interiors--almost impossible to photograph--breathe the atmosphere of a vigorous young technology and, apart from affording a most enjoyable nostalgia trip for older visitors, they provide for the young a real insight into an historic phase of the evolution of the motoring which they tend to take for granted today. The immediacy of the experience is discreetly reinforced by the audio component of a conversation between the garage owner and his son, while the exterior of the building bristles with the gar- ish but authentic advertising of the 1930s. On the level above and behind the Beaulieu Motorworks an interactive workshop has been developed, with educational hands-on experiences designed for young visitors to learn the basic principles of modern motor vehicle engineering. However, the whole complex has involved a massive investment of finance and other resources, and it has been jointly funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund and by T&N plc, for whom it is part of their celebrations to mark the Centenary of the British Motor Industry.

PETER CANNON-BROOK ES

Photo Credits

National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, Hampshire.

Re-opening of the Ernst Barlach House, Hamburg P!1:S0260-4779(97)00052-6

In 1934 the Hamburg businessman, Hermann E Reemtsma, paid a visit to the North German sculptor, Ernst Barlach (1870-1938), in his studio in Giistrow (Mecklenburg). Reemtsma (1892-1961) had been aware of Barlach's work, at least since 1931 when he began work on the Hamburger Ehrenmal, but at Gi~s- trow he saw the unfinished series of sculptures known as The Frieze of Listeners. The genesis of these sculptures had begun in 1926 when Barlach entered the competition for a monument to Beethoven for Berlin, and he designed a bust of the composer surmounting a cylindrical pedestal ornamented with nine listening figures. After he failed to win the commission Barlach destroyed the maquette

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though before then he had made a set of high reliefs of The Listeners which survived as plasters. In 1930 Barlach was commissioned by the banker, Ludwig Katzenellenbogen, to carve these in wood as freestanding figures to decorate the Music Room of his wife, the actress Tilla Durieux. The Katzenellenbogens were forced by the rise of the Nazis to leave Germany when only three of the figures were completed, but in 1934 the unfinished commission was seen by Reemtsma who took it over. This was a courageous act in that Barlach's work had been the subject of right-wing hostility and his monument to the war dead set up in Magdeburg in 1929 was pulled down in September of that year. Always a controversial figure, Barlach was subsequently branded a degenerative artist and prohibited from working. However, in a slightly modified form, The Listeners had been completed in 1934-35 and before the compulsory removal, from 1937, of 381 works by him from German public collections, and the dismantling of his remaining public monuments in 1938. Barlach died in Rostock, October 1938, but Reemtsma's enthusiasm for the sculptor's work remained undiminished.

Throughout the Nazi and immediate post-war periods Reemtsma continued his passionate collecting of Barlach's work so that by the late 1950s he had assembled outstanding holdings of his graphic work and sculptures in ceramic and bronze, as well as Barlach's wood sculptures. In 1961 he commissioned the Hamburg architect, Werner Kallmorgen, to design a low-profile museum in Jenisch Park overlooking the River Elbe on the outskirts of Hamburg to house and display to best advantage what had become the most important collection of sculptures and graphic work by Barlach in the Federal Republic of Germany. These collections he entrusted to the Stiftung Hermann E Reemtsma which he had founded in 1960, but unhappily he died 18 June 1961 before the completion of the new museum--the Ernst Barlach House--which was opened to the public in October 1962.1

Further acquisitions made subsequently have more than doubled the size of

1. Exterior of the Ernst Barlach House set in Jenisch Park, Hamburg. Designed bv Werner Kallmorgen (1961-62), the extreme simplicity continues throughout the building, in accordance with the inten-

tions of H e r m a n n R e e m t s m a .

304 World of Museums

2. Interior of the Ernst Barlach House showing part of the multi- Urpose space in the heart of the building which is used for both ctures and display. The nine carved figures of The Listeners were

completed for Reemtsma by Barlach in 1934-35.

3. Interior of the principal display gallery of the Ernst Barlach House and, apart from the modernisation o f the h'ghting units (1995-96), Werner Kallmorgen's design of 1961-62

has been retained unchanged.

the collection, and the museum, with 24 sculptures executed in wood, now pos- sesses the largest group of his carved works in the world. Indeed, with a total of

World of Museums 305

4. One of the most moving wood sculptures by Barlach in the collection, The Meeting (1926), continues to be exhibited isolated under natural lighting in a cell-like space

(photo 1966).

some 130 sculptures, 350 drawings, and impressions of all his prints, the Ernst Barlach House is, with the Ernst Barlach Stiftung in G~istrow, one of the two leading centres for the study of Barlach today, z

For connoisseurs of intimate foundation museums, the cool clarity of the Ernst Barlach House, both inside and out, and the quality of the daylight under which many of the more important sculptures are displayed, have made it for years a

306 World of Museums

place of pilgrimage. On the other hand the continued growth of the collections has increasingly presented logistic problems which have to be addressed together with the social and economic need to augment the permanent collection with complementary special displays and temporary exhibitions designed to enco~,r- age more visitors to make the short journey to Jenisch Park (averaging some 25,000 p.a. during the early 1990s).

In 1995-96 the original building was modified and enlarged so as to provide the additional display space required (c250 me), and the technical services have been modernized to equip the museum for its expanded role in the 21st century. This has involved an ingenious remodelling of the entrance area and the south- west corner of the building, with the creation of a small coffee shop within the formerly open loggia, served from the security desk, and provision of a more compact unit for the sale of books and publications. More substantial has been the construction of a new, larger Temporary Exhibitions Gallery (c100 m 2) onto the south-east corner of the building. A seamless addition to the original structu~re, it is almost entirely hidden by the trees which have grown since 1961, and although invisible to those approaching the public entrance, it is ornamented with two bronze casts of figures from the set of three executed by Barlach for the facade of the Katharinenkirche in Liibeck (1930--33, in situ). This addition to the museum's resources means that the small and rather awkward gallery formerly allocated to temporary exhibitions is available now for the display of the permanent collec- tion, while the former Lecture Room has become a multi-purpose space in the heart of the building also providing additional display facilities for the permanent collection.

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5. Plan of the main floor of the Ernst Barlach House showing the remodelling of the entrance area and loggia, the new Temporary Exhibition Gallery (top right), and the

glazed-in Courtyard, all undertaken in 1995-96.

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6. Interior of the new Temporary Exhibitions Gallery of the Ernst Barlach House, constructed 1995-96.

The slope of the site has allowed a daylit lower floor to be inserted below the new Temporary Exhibitions Gallery, and this houses the new Library and Reading Room, and Curatorial Offices, moved down from the main floor, thereby permitting a reallocation of spaces for storage and other purposes within the basement of the original building. Otherwise, apart from modernisation of the generally inconspicu- ous electric lighting, the alterations to the display areas are almost undetectable and the original muted colour scheme has been retained as providing the most harmoni- ous foil for the wood sculptures. However, perhaps the most striking change has been the roofing over of the internal courtyard with a diaphonous glazed roof so as to provide a large daylit open space (130m 2) ideal for the display of larger sculptures associated with the future temporary exhibitions programme and for functions. The designs for the new additions to the museum have been undertaken by Karres Hartmeyer Dreyer Partners of Hamburg, with funds (DM 4.4m) provided by private sources and foundations, but the work took longer than expected (April 1995- November 1996) and the Director, Dr. Eva Caspers, is tackling the very consider- able task of rebuilding attendance at a time when the Department of Culture of the City of Hamburg has suspended its funding of the operating costs and the Ernst Barlach House faces massive competition from the heavily-marketed, high-profile Gallery of Contemporary Art opened by the Hamburg Kun- sthalle in the city centre, February 1997.

Notes

1. The Ernst Barlach House in its original form is discussed by Michael Brawne, Neue Museen--Planung und Einrichtung, Stuttgart (Gerd Hatje), 1965, pp. 114-15, with a plan of the main floor and 9 illustrations.

2. Basic information is provided by Andrea Heesemann-Wilson, Ernst Barlach Haul--an itinerary, n.d. but published by the museum. The Ernst Barlach Stitung, GListrow, is

308 World o]C Museurns

7. Interior of the internal Courtyard of the Ernst Barlach House (photo 1966) as designed by Werner Kallmorgen (1961-62).

8. Interior of the internal Courtyard of the Ernst Barlach House after the insertion of a glazed roof and reflooring (1995-96) to the

designs of Karres Hartmeyer Dreyer Partners, Hamburg.

currently building an exhibitions centre and archive close to Barlach's atelier-house overlooking the Inselsee outside Giistrow, and this is the first new museum building to beaut in hand in the L~inde of the former German Democratic Republic since the reunincation of Germany.

PETER CANNON-BROOKES

Photo Credits

1, 4, 7 & 8 Peter Cannon-Brookes, Abingdon. 2, 3, 5 & 6 Ernst Barlach House, Hamburg.