Brunswick State Museum

The Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum traces the past of the Braunschweig region across four sites. The main building, Vieweghaus, stands in the city centre at Burgplatz and holds the museum’s core collection. A second site, Hinter Ägidien, presents Judaica in a street named Hinter St. Aegidien and features a restored synagogue interior from Hornburg. A third branch, Kanzlei in Wolfenbüttel, occupies a 16th-century building and covers prehistoric and ancient history up to the 8th century. The fourth site, Bauernhausmuseum in Bortfeld, shows rural life with a 17th-century farmhouse as its centrepiece. The museum’s holdings span half a million years and include up to 800,000 objects. Founded in 1891 as a regional history museum, it was renamed in 1938 and moved its main collection to Vieweghaus in 1986. The Hinter Ägidien annex opened in 1746, making it one of the oldest parts of the museum. Kanzlei Wolfenbüttel opened in 1959 to display early human artefacts, while the Bauernhausmuseum opened in 1968 to preserve farming heritage. Visitors to Vieweghaus find displays on culture, economy, technology and social history in a neoclassical setting. At Hinter Ägidien they see religious artefacts and a historic synagogue interior. Kanzlei Wolfenbüttel offers tools and remains from prehistoric times to the early Middle Ages. The Bauernhausmuseum in Bortfeld shows a reetgedecktes Hallenhaus from 1639 and farm life exhibits in a village setting.