Welcome to Baden-Würtemberg -
Welcome to the country!
Seven regional open-air museums exist in rural Baden-Württemberg. Seven large historical museums invite you to visit the various landscapes in one rural setting. Seven regions of south-west Germany present their farming history, life an work.
The concept of the museum supporters and the state
Baden-Württemberg, to collect historical buildings and other remnants of rural
culture and make them accessible to the public, has proved to be a success. With
the creation of the open-air museums, sites have been created where information
and relaxation, love of the native country and cosmopolitan attitudes
harmoniously unite.
Welcome to the "Beuren Open-Air
Museum" !
Beuren - Origin and Conception
Amidst orchards and meadows a charming assembly of buildings from the middle Neckar, Filder, Schurwald and Swabian Alb awaits the visitor. Each of the houses has its own story to tell: the stories of the people who lived and worked in them.
Different periods guide visitors through the centuries: a barn is seen as it was built in 1496, a farmhouse in the period around 1800, a bakehouse and wash-house in the condition of about 1900, a joiner's workshop from the 1920's, a bakehouse at it was still in operation in the 1980's and others ...
The new annual programm of events shows the varied and exciting things offered by the Museum. You will recieve the programme at Beuren Open-Air Museum or you can order it. We also offer foreign.language guides for groups if required.
In 1985 the authorities of Esslingen rural district decidet to set up a regional open-air museum, and in 1987 the first sod was cut. In 1995 Beuren Open-Air Museum was formally opened as the Museum for Rural Culture or Esslingen Rural District. Accordingly it is the youngest of the seven regional rural open-air museums in Baden-Württemberg.
Circular Tour
Two groups of buildings are developing within the grounds of Beuren Open-Air Museum at the foot of the Swabian Alb. In the "Neckarland" group there are houses from the rural districts of Böblingen, Esslingen, Ludwigsburg and also from Reutlingen district. The range extends from large farmhouses and working buildings via bakehouse and barn to pigsty. The "Swabian Alb" group of buildings is still under construction.
Johann Georg Mannsperger, farmer, butcher, councillor and sometime innkeeper in the small village of Tamm near Ludwigsburg was the builder of this property. Mannsperger erected the two-storey farmhouse in 1726. An inscription over the entrance dooe gives the year of construction as 1726, and a biblical saying also decorates the entrance door: "if God be for us, who can be against us?" In this grand farmhouse the livestock pens were originally on the ground floor and the dwelling rooms on the upper floor. In 1743 Mannsperger erected an extension over the gate entrance. A few years later this room recieved a stucoed ceiling in rococo style, an unusual feature for a farmhouse in the second half of the 18th century.
The house exhibits further structural peculiarities wich can be seen on a walk around. There is the figure of a man-at-arms on the outer facade. Village lore tells that this figure on the corner of the house is in memory of the builder's son, who is supposed to have fallen under the wheels of a wagon when transporting stone and died. The various freestones used in the doors and windows could be wrongly hewn stones actually intended for Ludwigsburg castle which was built at the same time. As carrier, Mannsperger could easily come by this valuable building material. The splendidly furnished rooms are associated with stays by Duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg who ruled from 1737 to 1793.
In 1974 the owners sold the property to Tamm community and it was to be demolished in order to widen the road throungh the village. It could be rescued by moving the house into an open-air-museum. Extensive investigations were made in order to reconstruct the original condition of the house when it was built. In the Museum the Mannsperger house is presented in the middle of the 18th century.
Today it serves as the entrance buildingof the Open-Air Museum. A Museum restaurant has been installed in the upper storey. Its name "Steinbüble" (Stone Lad) recalls the figure at the corner of the house.
The dwelling-cum-byre from Beuren
This one-storey dwellinghouse-cum-byre with barn was built in Beuren in the 16th century. The timberframe building has panels of wattle and daub. The barn is the older part of the building, the timbers being dated to the year 1528. The oak timber for the dwelling-cum-byre part was feldet in 1558.
In the Museum this house is shown in the time of about 1800. The building, surroundings and interior furnishing were reconstructed to this period. In 1798 two families lived in the house: the Kittelbergers, a married couple of about seventy, and their daughter with her family. Philipp Jacob Kittelberger was a well-to-do man in the village. For example, he loaned monney to private individuals and even to the community. Saving-banks did not appear in Württemberg until 1818. His Daughter shared the fade of many women at this time. She died at the birth of her sixth child. The son-in-law married again a few month later.
Original furnishing from around 1800 were not preserved from this house. The house was fitted out with furniture from this period and from Württemberg, on the basis of archival research. However, many of these pieces of furniture, for example a "barrel-pouring box" or a half-tester bed frame, were nit available in the Museum's collection nor could they be acquired through the antique trade or from other museums. The absence of this furniture is indicated in the individual rooms.
The Parson Johann Gottlieb Steeb
A parson "leads" visitors throung the house about 1800. Village parsons gave the rural population new ideas on all aspects of farming activity and life. Johann Gottlieb Steeb was parson in nearby Grabenstetten in 1782.
His interests included seed production, meadow cultivation and sheep farming. He went in for growing sainfoin on the unused fallow fields. With this additional fodder the cattle stock could be improved and the fields better fertilized with the additional farmyard manure. Steeb also went in for improvement as regards people. He promoted systematic education for the rural population and the establishment of an agricultural society.
First farmhouse, then joiner's worshop: Dwelling house and workshop of the Walz family of joiners. The farmhouse was built in the Year 1763 at Ohmenhausen near Reutlingen. In 1778 the owner enlarged the house with a "lean-to". The existing timber-frame gable was removed and reused. The old barn was demolished in 1810 and replaced by a new one. Further renovations took place later. The inhabitants of the property did farming and usually an additional craft as well. Because of the division of property, the farm land was insufficient to ensure subsistence. Not until 1923 did this change. In that year Wilma Digel married the master joiner Karl Walz who also came from Ohmenhausen. He moved with his wife into the house of his parents-in-law and opened up a joiner's-workshop there. Unusually for the time, the parents-in-law gave up farming and lived on their farm rents.
In the Museum this house is shown in the period of 1920's. The house already had electricity then, and was connected to the public water supply. Seven people lived in the house at this time: the married couple (Walz and his wife) with their two children, the parents and the wife's sister. Five dwelling rooms were available on the upper floor: three beedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. In addition there was a tiolet on the upper floor. The living-room was used by the whole family, and also served as thejoiner's office. Here the master joiner received his customers, male and female.
Joiner's workshop - built into the farmhouse of his parents-in-law. The father of Karl Walz had a joiner's workshop in Ohmenhausen, but his father's workshop seemed too small to him. The son wanted a modern outfit with electrically driven machines. The workshop in the house of his parents-in-law was larger than that of his father. Karl Walz also used part of the former byre for the planing machine. The rooms were not really convenient, however. In order to saw long timbers he had to open a small shutter in the wall, and the way to the planingmachine with the boards was via the doors at the back and throungh the garden.
From chamber to beedroom - Until the end of the 19th century the furnishing of a bedroom was seldom "all of a piece". The beds often stood seperately and close to the wall, as they do in the chamber of the parents-in-law here. To acquire a complete set of bedroom furniture made by the joiner new for the wedding had become a young married couple's aspiration even on the farms. Karl Walz made the bedroom furniture himself, though the wardrobe was not ready for the wedding because the customers' orders had priority.
The chamber of Luise Digel - Luise Digel, the sister of Wilma Digel was born in 1875. After confirmation the parents sent her into the factory. Instead of being a maid on a farm, she was supposed to earn money in the factory until her mariage. However, at 19 years of age she lost an arm in an accident in a damask weaving-mill, so she was 75% disabeld. Despite the handicap she mannaged the house. When her sister Wilma married in 1923, Luise was 48 years old. She lived in the chamber between the kitchen and the parents'beedroom. In 1928 she married at the age of 53 and left her parents' house.
Museum location / Adress
Freilichtmuseum Beuren
In den Herbstwiesen
D - 72660 Beuren
Tel. (+49-70 25) 9 11 90 - 0
Fax (+49-70 25) 9 11 90 - 10
e-Mail: info@freilichtmuseum-beuren.de
Opening times
April to October,
daily 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. (no entry after 5.30 p.m.), closed on mondays,
guidet tours in english by arrangement.