100 Years of Technical Museum Vienna | |
The Technical Museum Vienna this year celebrates the day one hundered years ago when its foundation stone was laid. With Wilhelm Franz Exner (1840-1931)the Technical Museum and TÜV AUSTRIA had the same founder father.
It was on a Sunday, when Emperor Franz-Josefhimself laid the foundation stone for the new“Technical Museum for Industry and Commerce“.According to the “Neue Freie Presse“ the beautifulweather on 20th June 1909 had drawn manypeople, “who occupied the fairground and LinzerStraße”, to the ceremony. The laying of thefoundation stone is the occasion why the TechnicalMuseum Vienna, as it is called today, will be celebratingits 100 year jubilee for 100 days.
From 13 March to 21 June 2009 the Museumwants to present itself as an “open communicationand knowledge space for the most different interestsand people of most different origins”, as itsays in a press release. The climax and conclusionof the festivities will be from 17 till 21 June 2009,when the museum will be opened all the time for100 hours.Well-known persons from the cultural scene andoriginal contributions will bring the jubilee celebrationsto a final climax and conclusion.
TMW meets TÜV
The resolution to set up a technical museum for industry and commerce was taken on the occasion of the 60th year of the emperor’s reign in the year 1908. At that time Vienna had a number of smaller technology-oriented museums like the railway and post museum or the technological trade museum. It was Wilhelm Franz Exner (1840-1931), the developer of vocational schools in the monarchy, long-term rector of the University for Agriculture in Vienna and pioneer of the Austrian measuring and inspection system, who for decades promoted the combination of the divergent efforts against the individual special interests. He made the setting-up of a technical museum his life’s achievement.
At the same time Exner was one of two founding fathers of today’s TÜV AUSTRIA and for years president of the precursor institution of TÜV, the “Dampfkesseluntersuchungs- und Versicherungs-Gesellschaft a.G.” As a small sign of respect for the common roots of TMW and TÜV, Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Hugo Eberhardt, Chairman of the Board of TÜV AUSTRIA, is a member of the Board of the “Gesellschaft der Freunde des Technischen Museums Wien“. The inauguration of the then Technical Museum for Industry and Commerce did not take place until 6th May 1918, still during the last year of the war.
During the following decades only limited funds were available for its upkeep. As a consequence the building lost some of its substance during the 80s. After the general renovation in 1994 the TMW has today over 22,000 m² and attracts 300.000 visitors per year.
TÜV AUSTRIA congratulates on the centenary jubilee of the Technical Museum and on ten years of modern museum management.
