Stuttgart - Landmarks, Sights and Culture - Museums

Museums

Stuttgart is home to five of the eleven state museums in Baden-Württemberg. The foremost of these is the in the Stuttgart district of Bad Cannstatt]old State Gallery (opened in 1843, extended in 1984) which holds art dating from the 14th to 19th century including works by Rubens, Rembrandt, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne and Beuys. Next door to the Old State Gallery is the New State Gallery (1980) with its controversial modern architecture. Among others, this gallery houses works from Max Beckmann, Dalí, Matisse, Miró, Picasso, Klee, Chagall and Kandinsky.

The Old Castle is also home to the State Museum of Württemberg which was founded in 1862 by William I of Württemberg. The museum traces the rich history of Württemberg with many artefacts from the its dukes, counts and kings, as well as earlier remants dating back to the stone age. On the Karlsplatz side of the Old Castle is a museum dedicated to the memory of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, former resident of Stuttgart who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944.

Other leading museums in Stuttgart include:

• The History Museum (Haus der Geschichte, 1987), examining local history, finds, the conflict between modern society and its cultural history
• State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart (SMNS) in Park Rosenstein housed in Castle Rosenstein (with an emphasis on biology and natural history) and Löwentor Museum (paleontology and geology, home of the Steinheim Skull and many unique fossils from the triassic, jurassic and tertiary periods
• The Mercedes-Benz Museum (1936, moved in 2006), now the most visited museum in Stuttgart (440,000 visits per year. The museum traces the 125 year history of the automobile from the legendary silver arrow to the Mercedes-Benz brand of today
• Stuttgart Art Museum (Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, 2005), the number two museum in Stuttgart in terms of visitors with a strong leaning towards modern art (the foremost exhibition of Otto Dix works. The museum stands on the corner of Schlossplatz, Stuttgart in a huge glass cube, in strong contrast to the surrounding traditional architecture.
• The Porsche Museum (1976, reopened in 2008 on new premises).
• Hegel House (Hegelhaus), birthplace of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel which documents his life works
• The Linden Museum, established in 1911, a leading international ethnological museum
• Stuttgart Tram Museum in Zuffenhausen, a display of historical vehicles dating back to 1868
• Theodor Heuss House (Theodor-Heuss-Haus, 2002) in Killesbergpark, a tribute to the life and times of the former German president
• The North Station Memorial (Gedenkstätte am Nordbahnhof Stuttgart) in memory of the 2000 or so Jewish holocaust victims deported by the Nazis from the now disused North Station