The Coburg Doll Museum houses a huge collection of historical toys. It will be closed at the end of the year. But the exhibition lives on in another place.
Coburg (dpa / lby) - Coburg loses a cultural asset - the doll museum will close at the end of 2022. But it will live on in a different place: in the future, friends of historical toys will be able to view the huge collection at a new location in the Coburg district, said Louay Yassin, the city's spokesman. He has not yet given any information on the exact location, as negotiations are still being held with a private foundation. The approximately 2,000 dolls housed in the museum are to be given on permanent loan.
The historical dolls, doll houses and accessories date from around the period 1800 to 1960. Most of the exhibits were made in Franconia or Thuringia. In the museum you can experience how toys were used in the bourgeoisie to raise children. The exhibition has so far been housed in a listed building in Coburg's Rückertstraße. The famous poet and orientalist Friedrich Rückert lived there from 1820 to 1826. It was here that Rückert met his future wife, Luise Wiethaus-Fischer. The couple's first three children were born in the attic, which today serves as a depot for the Doll Museum.
However, the nature of the historic building is the main reason why the exhibition had to move, says Louay Yassin: "The museum consists of nothing but small rooms. This is unfavorable for school classes, which accounted for a large part of the number of visitors. Because they can never be at the same time stay in a room." The several thousand exhibits are housed in more than 30 rooms on two floors.
In addition, the city spokesman explains, the centuries-old house is not barrier-free - and the monument protection does not allow a corresponding conversion. In addition, the number of visitors fell significantly: According to the city of Coburg, a good 6,600 people visited the doll museum in 2019, in 2022 there were only 2,600 from January to September. In November, the Coburg city council decided to close the museum at its current location shut down.
In July 1987, the couple Carin and Hans Lossnitzer opened the Coburg Doll Museum, initially as a private museum. In doing so, they made their private collection of dolls accessible to the public. The Lossnitzer couple had lived in Ettlingen near Karlsruhe until then. Because two-thirds of the dolls they collected came from the region of North Franconia-South Thuringia, they decided to open the museum in Coburg. From 2007 the Doll Museum was in the hands of the city. A fire in 2012 damaged the building. The exhibits were brought to safety in good time.
