The German Clock Museum, Furtwangen
More than Clocks - A Portrait
Open Daily
Counting 60,000 visitors per year, the German Clock Museum is among the major tourist attractions in the Black Forest. Although the Museum features an impressive collection of both antique wooden clocks and cuckoo clocks of the Black Forest, its no-frills presentation vigorously goes against the grain of the time-worn image attached to the Black Forest.
The exhibition presents a comprehensive insight into the history of time, spanning the time curve from the sundial to the atomic clock, focussing in particular on handcrafted and industrial clock-making in the Black Forest. Even entire gallery space of the Museum, such as cannot be found in any other museum, are dedicated to quartz timepieces and atomic clocks or to Universal Time Coordinated.
1001 Guided Tours on 365 Days of the Year
The personally guided tour, held in German, French or English, is the mainstay of instruction in the German Clock Museum. Upwards of one-third of all visitors choose to go on the walking tour of the Museum, meaning, in plain terms, that nearly 1,000 guided tours are booked each year. A classical highlight for schoolchildren is the “Summer Clock Workshop”, where children can make and design their own clock. For school classes, the Museum also offers workshop modules based on a museum theme, some of which are coordinated with the education curriculum.
Museum Staff on 365 Days per Year
Along with its 14 regular employees, the Museum has nearly 30 additional staff members who make it possible to keep the Museum doors open to the public on 365 days per year, including tours in different languages. Even individual visitors, can view the exhibition in its entirety in three languages. To top it all off, the Museum has completely barrier-free accessibility.
A Time-Honoured Location
The German Clock Museum is located in the principle town of the long-gone German clock industry, namely in Furtwangen in the Black Forest. The institution emerged, historically speaking, from the clock collection left by the Grand Ducal Clock-Making School of Baden, whose modern-day successor is Furtwangen University (www.hs-furtwangen.de), with which the German Clock Museum is still affiliated today.
Since 1852
A plea sent out in the year 1852 marks the beginning of the Furtwangen Clock Collection. At the time, Robert Gerwig, the first director of the Grand Ducal Clock-Making School of Baden, asked for donations of vintage clocks to help start the collection. In 1873 the collection became a permanent fixture in Furtwangen and has been an attraction for visitors from throughout the region ever since.
Thanks to Furtwangen’s somewhat remote location, there was no war damage. The purchase of the Kienzle collection for 9 million marks in 1975, brought the largest collection of clocks and watches in Germany to Furtwangen. Today it holds around 8,000 timekeepers, of which 1,300 are on display. The German Clock Museum’s vast collection of specialized literature is the largest one in Germany on horology.
The edifice housing the clock exhibition has been undergoing successive remodelling as well. Built in 1873, the State Trade Building was replaced after the Second World War by a museum pavilion, which, in turn, was replaced in 1992 and expanded to approximately 1,500m2 of exhibition space. New workshops and store-rooms as well as a modern climate control system have been the most recent building highlights.
Perspectives in Transition
In recent years, the permanent exhibition underwent a face-lift. Along with its technical and historical perspectives, the exhibition now features cultural and economic history as well. The fascinating stroll through the history of timekeeping has become a personal experience. Awestruck at first by the massive and momentous astronomical clocks of the 18th century, the site of grandma’s kitchen clocks and the alarm clocks inspires one’s own nostalgic remembrance of things past.
Research
The exhibition of the German Clock Museum is based on exhaustive research. Along with the extensive library collection, there is also a comprehensive archive of company documents and brochures. A far-reaching network of professional contacts is cultivated through conferences and professional publications.
The German Clock Route
The German Clock Museum heads the German Clock Route Study Group (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Uhrenstraße) (www.deutscheuhrenstrasse.de). This tourist route, founded in 1992, links 35 member communities associated with clock manufacturing in Baden and Württemberg. Museums, artisans and businesses along the route confirm that the Black Forest is more than just a nature sanctuary. In 2010, the German Clock Route made a spectacular appearance at the State Garden Show in Villingen-Schwenningen. A historic signalman’s hut was transformed into a cuckoo clock for the occasion, thus drawing attention to the origin of this Black Forest trademark.
Anchor Point in ERIH, the European Route of Industrial Heritage
The German Clock Museum earned this additional distinction in 2008. ERIH Anchor Points are well-known locations reflecting Europe’s industrial heritage; and, as such, the Museum acts as a link between the German Clock Route and ERIH, the network of European industrial heritage. The German Clock Route stands for an industrial region which, for decades, had been an international leader in the field of clocks. Even today’s corporate and educational landscape is historically based on the clock industry.
These correlations have moulded the industrial landscape, yet they can be brought out to reveal what lies beneath the surface. Industrial heritage holds a potential for tourism that has, to date, barely been explored in the Black Forest. The distinction of being an Anchor Point is the first step along the way.
Horological Museums throughout the World
The German Clock Museum cultivates close professional contacts with the major horological museums in Switzerland, France and the USA. The staff of the German Clock Museum is actively involved in national horological associations (German Society for Chronometry), museum federations, and collectors’ associations. Their research work is projected in their multilingual publications for the broad public as well as in professional publications and articles at sporadic intervals.
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