Magazines - Tribal Art Autumn 2010

By Jutta Engelhar, Deputy Director of the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum of World Cultures.

Introduction
After fifteen years of planning and construction, the new Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum of World Cultures will reopen on October 23, 2010. In a modern, purpose-built structure on Cäcilienstrasse in the heart of Cologne, the museum will present a new and innovative conception for exhibitions and events.
Founded in 1901, the Cologne Museum für Völkerkunde opened its doors in 1906 in the Südstadt district, on the Ubierring section of Cologne’s ring road. Based there until early 2008, the museum attracted vast numbers of visitors with its ongoing program of exhibitions and events. The core of the museum’s holdings consists of a private collection amassed by world traveler Wilhelm Joest, who was born in Cologne in 1852. It is comprised of some 3,500 objects from all over the globe. After his death in 1897, he left his collection to his sister Adele and her husband, Eugen Rautenstrauch. Adele Rautenstrauch financed the building of the museum in memory of her brother and her husband, who died in 1900. By 1899 the entire Joest Collection had passed into the possession of the city of Cologne as a gift. Donations from the citizenry continue to this day and the collection currently boasts some 60,000 objects from Oceania, Africa, Asia, and the Americas; 100,000 anthropological photographs; and 40,000 reference books.