Natural History Museum, Bielefeld
The Natural History Museum in Bielefeld is a natural history museum in the city of Bielefeld in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Since 2003, it was given the additional name namu, which stands for the German words Natur, Mensch, and Umwelt. The exhibitions take place in the Spiegelshof, a historical building from the 14th century.
History
1889 is regarded the founding year of the Museum der Stadt Bielefeld. In 1906, this museum became the Städtisches Museum, containing both a history and natural history department. In 1930, an independent Natural History Museum was opened in the Kaselowsky villa. After World War II, from 1946 to 1964, the museum had no permanent home, but in 1964, temporary exhibition spaces were established at the Stapenhorststraße 1. Martin Büchner, mineralogist and long-term director of the museum, and other members of the Naturwissenschaftlicher Verein für Bielefeld und Umgegend essentially contributed to the establishment of the new natural history museum and implemented numerous special exhibitions. In 1977, the museum received additional temporary premises at the Kreuzstrasse 38. Finally, in 1986, the museum moved to the Spiegelshof, which since serves as the exhibition building. In 1994, the „Förderverein Naturkunde-Museum der Stadt Bielefeld“ was founded. Isolde Wrazidlo became director of the museum in 1999, after the retirement of Martin Büchner.In 2003, the museum received a new logo and the additional name namu, an acronym standing for the German words Natur, Mensch, and Umwelt. Subsequent events include the renovation and conversion of the Spiegelsche Hof, the museums 100-year-celebration combined with the implementation of the "Naturhistorischen Zeitreise mit der StadtBahn", the opening of the new permanent exhibition "ausSterben – überLeben", the acquisition and renovation of the museum's external venue "Grünes Haus" at the Sparrenburg castle and the expansion of the educational service. In 2014, the basement of the museum was converted into the "Geostollen", a permanent geological exhibition resembling a mining tunnel. Ingo Höpfner became museum director on Jan 1, 2023
Collections
The collections of the Bielefeld Natural History Museum are divided into three parts: the biological, geological and archaeological collection.The biological collection includes about 410.000 objects.
- The snail and shell collection encompasses 7000 specimens including 657 separate species, giving an overview of the biodiversity of the European shores.
- The bird collection comprises 500 specimens including nearly all of the 250 breeding birds of Germany, among them rare specimens such as the Ortolan bunting, the Northern wheatear and the Great snipe.
- The extensive insect collection with beetles, butterflies, bugs, bees and wasps encompasses about 400.000 specimens. The majority of the objects are native species, among them 50.000 butterflies from Westphalia. The largest part of the insect collection is formed by beetles, with more than 220.000 objects.
- The stratigraphical collection comprises 30.000 objects. These are largely fossils and rocks from Mesozoic outcrops of the Bielefeld area, including important fossils such as the holotype specimens of the temnospondyl amphibian Cyclotosaurus buechneri and the plesiosaur Arminisaurus schuberti, which were both found within the city limits of Bielefeld. The palaeontological collection is supplemented by fossils of Pleistocene mammals such as a nearly complete skeleton of a Woolly rhinoceros, found in the area.
- The mineralogical-petrographical collection encompasses ca. 30.000 specimens from Westphalia and the adjacent areas of the Netherlands.
- The museum owns arrowheads, spearheads, neolithic daggers, sickles, chisels, stone axes with drilling, blades and other objects.
- Focus of the archaeological collection are local early, middle and late neolithic finds from the wider Bielefeld area. Further neolithic artifacts are from Hesse, the Baltic Sea area and from North America. This collection is supplemented by modern objects from Papua New Guinea.