Permanent Collection at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
The MKG’s collections have been gathered over generations. Today it is a universal museum, presenting over 500 000 works showcasing human creativity and inventiveness at their best. The high calibre collection spans over 4000 years of human history from Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Baroque and Classicism to Modernity and the present. In 1872 a bouillon cup from the royal porcelain manufacturers in the French city of Sèvres received the first inventory number; today it is part of the Ceramics Collection. Since then, the collections of the museum have continued to grow consistently through acquisitions, gifts and bequests. The MKG’s collections are internationally oriented, with particular emphases on European and East Asian art. They unite the three world religions: Christendom, Buddhism and Islam. Furthermore, this interdisciplinary museum is characterised by comprehensive collections of Graphic Design, Poster Art, Photography, Fashion and Textiles. An exceptionally active acquisitions politics in the early days of the museum ensured that it is now caring for a preeminent Art Nouveau ensemble of furniture and objects. The Period Rooms, too, are a special attraction. Presenting media, furniture and all kinds of objects together, these rooms illustrate the lifestyle of diverse epochs. The Milde-Speckter-Rooms represent bourgeois living during Classicism. With its Gründerzeit concert room splendour the Hall of Mirrors remains a social centre of Hamburg today. In 2012 Verner Panton’s dazzling Canteen designed for the SPIEGEL Publishing House, an icon of Pop Art, is being installed at the MKG. The Musical Instruments Collection, too, is unique – the precious historical instruments are regularly played in concerts and during guided tours, and resound around the museum.
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Steintorplatz
D-20099 Hamburg
Phone: +49 40 428134-880
www.mkg-hamburg.de
Opening Times
Tuesdays to Sundays: 10 am – 6 pm
Thursdays: 10 am – 9 pm
Thursdays on or before a public holiday: 10 am – 6 pm
Last admission and ticket sales 30 minutes before closing time
