[Translated by eTranslation]

On 29 April 1876 Emperor Franz Joseph I founded the Natural History Museum Vienna in the legal sense with his signature, on 30 April 1876 he appointed the geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter as his first artistic director. At that time, the building of the museum on Vienna's Ringstraße was already under construction – in August 1889 it finally came to the ceremonial opening.
 
Today, with more than 30 million objects, the house houses one of the most important natural science collections in the world. The NHM Vienna is a unique archive for the origin and development of the earth and life. It documents the history and structure of our planet, shows the diversity of life on Earth and provides insight into human development. Like no other natural history museum, it explores the entire spectrum of nature in the past and present using biological, geological, paleontological, mineralogical, anthropological, prehistoric and cultural-historical objects.
 
The 150th anniversary is now the occasion for the NHM Vienna to take a critical look back at its own history. The desire to collect and the joy of discovering and exploring, which still drives scientists to this day, contrast with the dark sides of collecting and the collections.
 
Some objects seem janus-headed, because they are scientifically unique and at the same time burdened by their problematic acquisition context. Were the famous 19th century expeditions an honourable attempt to increase knowledge and attract exotic objects to the imperial collections – or was a colonial agenda the real motivation? How were objects that came to the house illegally during the Nazi period dealt with and how are pieces that came into the collections in an ethically questionable way to be evaluated? Depending on the point of view, an object acts as a sober carrier of scientific information or as a manifestation of questionable collection methods. Depending on the perspective, a collection object is both materially valuable and of little scientific interest. Conversely, an inconspicuous, tiny insect can be a world unique, the loss of which cannot be offset in money.
 
This ambivalence, manifested in the NHM Vienna and its collections, is the leitmotif of the exhibition and shapes its architecture and design. The team of designers of breadedEscalope and Benedikt Haid deliberately took unexpected points of view in order to illuminate and contextualize the collections or selected objects in an unusual perspective. This resulted in an exhibition that breaks with the usual viewing habits and expectations and, despite the complex themes, lets the curators feel the intense and often loving connection with ‘their’ collections. Because it is only through the scientists and the application of new methods that new questions arise that show the importance of the collections for our modern knowledge society.
 
In the cabinets, the history of the house has been discussed since the first beginnings under Maria Theresa and Franz I. Stephan von Lorraine and iconic moments of the collection are illuminated. From the first collection catalogues to the founding charter of the NHM Vienna signed by Emperor Franz Joseph I and a historical spittoon from one of the showrooms, the arch extends to handprints left by climate adhesives that impressively show the changes that society has undergone over the past 150 years.
 
Another focal point of the cabinets are the other locations of the NHM Vienna: the Donauauen National Park Institute in Petronell, the Archaeological Research Centre in Hallstatt and the Pathological-Anatomical Collection in the so-called Fool's Tower in Vienna. In the 20th and 21st centuries, artists began to increasingly engage with the museum and its collections, opening up completely new perspectives. From painting and photography to performance and the use of artificial intelligence, the creative spectrum of works will be curated as a separate gallery within the exhibition.
 
The two main rooms are entirely dedicated to the theme of collecting in its complexity and ambivalence. The grid-shaped arrangement of one hall reflects the idea of structuring and systematizing. The grid nodes are assigned to individual thematic complexes, which show the complexity of the collections in their diversity. The other room gives up this strict structure and, in a literal sense, encourages the change of perspective(s) through some iconic objects.
 
The digital museum is the end – or the beginning – of the tour. Here, interactive animations project high-resolution 3D models of collection objects and raise the question of whether the digital object can be an adequate substitute for "the real" and what this could mean for the "museum of the future".

The special exhibition "Good Collecting – Bad Collecting" runs through June 27, 2027.

Press photos: https://nhm.px.media/share/1777358423ybbdO2A4PN4n6c

Inquiry note: 
Mag. Irina Kubadinow
Head of Press & Public Relations, Press Spokesperson
Tel.: +43 (1) 521 77-410                                                          
irina.kubadinow@nhm.at                                                         
 
Mag. Klara Vakaj
Press officer
Tel.: +43 (1) 521 77-626
klara.vakaj@nhm.at