Museums in Augsburg Inner City

The birthplace of the world-famous writer Bertolt Brecht is now a memorial to his life. The Brechthaus museum exhibits texts, pictures, documents and works of art about Brecht’s life. There are five rooms highlighting his childhood and youth in Augsburg, university years and his writings from 1917 to 1924, his exile and his work after returning to Europe. (Auf dem Rain 7).

The history of the Fuggerei is told in the museum’s permanent exhibition and in a film. The only originally preserved domicile from the 16th century includes a kitchen, living room and bedroom in which visitors can get an idea of life in the oldest social housing settlement in the world. A modern model Apartment shows life in the Fuggerei today. (Jakoberstraße, Museum in Mittlere Gasse 13 and 14).

This exhibit of modern art is displayed in the Glaspalast, a 2000 square meter space which is a monument to Augsburg’s industrial past. Temporary installations and the State Gallery of Modern Art (a branch of the Pinakothek of Modern Art in Munich) provide for H2’s exhibition. (Beim Glaspalast 1)

The Maximilian Museum presents cultural history: sculptures, Augsburg silver, the model chamber with hydro-technical instructional models and architectural models by Elias Holl,scientific instruments and clocks, porcellain and pottery as well as the city history collection. In the Viermetzhof courtyard the original bronzes of Augustus, Mercury and Hercules fountains are displayed, (Fuggerplatz 1).

The Natural History Museum features exhibits in the areas of mineralogy, Geologe, ecology, and zoology. Unique in southern Germany is the “Molasses-Exhibition”, which shows the fossils of the animal world of Tertiäre. The Planetarium of the Stadtsparkasse completes the Natural History Museum: it draws visitors into the world of outer space and planets and stars (Ludwigstr. 2).

The Schaezler Palace is home to the German Baroque Gallery, the collection of the Karl and Magdalene Haberstock Foundation and a light-filled Rococo ballroom. In addition to paintings by Augsburg masters of the 17th and 18th centuries, visitors can see works by world-famous painters like Peter Paul Rubens, van Dyck and Tiepolo. The Rocco style palace and its garden are well worth seeing (Maximilianstr. 46).