Fuggereimuseum

The Fuggerei Museum stands in Augsburg’s oldest social housing estate, the Fuggerei, built by the Fugger family in the 16th century. It occupies two adjoining houses in Mittlere Gasse, the last original dwellings still standing in the estate. Visitors enter a museum that mixes past and present: one wing shows a 19th-century apartment furnished as it would have been when families paid their annual rent of one Rhenish guilder. The other wing offers a modern show flat that illustrates how residents live today. The museum’s didactic section, enlarged and modernised in 2006, uses films, panels and objects to trace the Fugger family’s rise from 15th-century merchants to 16th-century bankers. A separate 1943 air-raid bunker, added in 2008, documents the February 1944 bombing of Augsburg and the rebuilding that followed. Outside, information boards point out architectural details of the estate’s houses. Inside, three rooms in 18th-century style show beds, tables and stoves as they were used. A modern flat next door contrasts with polished floors and fitted kitchens. The bunker displays photographs of the 1944 raid and plans for post-war expansion that brought the estate to its present size.