Potsdam Museum - Forum für Kunst und Geschichte

The Potsdam Museum - Forum für Kunst und Geschichte occupies the Altes Rathaus, the old town hall on the Alter Markt. It houses one of the largest collections of art, culture and regional history in Brandenburg: more than 250 thousand objects. The building is accessible to wheelchair users. If it is your first time in Potsdam, this is a good starting point.

Everything began with the citizens: in April 1909, they founded the Museumsverein association to create a municipal museum. Still in 1909, 485 "patriotic objects" had been gathered, and an appeal asked the residents for donations. The north wing of the town hall received the first exhibition. In 1923, a garrison museum opened in the former Marstall. The Second World War took the collections to various points. A British air raid in 1945 destroyed a significant part of them. In 1946 the museum reopened and set out to rescue and restore what remained. In the following decades, it passed through various locations in the city.

The collection of fine arts brings together paintings, graphics and sculptures from the late Middle Ages to the present. The emphasis falls on landscape painting and contemporary artists of the region. The photographic collection documents the urban, political and cultural history of Potsdam and its surroundings. The military pieces recall the garrison past, while porcelain, glass, textiles and furniture speak of the applied arts and everyday life. Alongside the permanent exhibition, there are special shows, events and debates about the city's past and present. The wanderings ended in 2012, when the museum returned to the old town hall where the first exhibition had opened in 1909.