Press release: From “Making of” to “Rooms of knowledge“

No. 60 - 24.05.2022

Forum Wissen opens 4 June – Göttingen University President welcomes first guests

After almost ten years of planning and renovation, the time has finally come: Göttingen University's Forum Wissen will open its doors to the public for the first time on 4 and 5 June 2022. During the opening weekend, all rooms of the permanent exhibition will be open from 10:00 to 18:00, as will the museum shop and the café in the atrium. University President Professor Metin Tolan will welcome the first guests to Berliner Straße 28, together with Project Manager Dr Marie Luisa Allemeyer and the future Academic Director, Professor Christoph Bleidorn. Admission is free and the museum is also open on Monday 6 June (Whit Monday).

The programme on Saturday and Sunday includes numerous lectures on the various "Rooms of Knowledge" in the permanent exhibition and the future programme for hands-on exhibits. Allemeyer will outline the development from the first ideas to the realisation of the Göttingen Museum of Knowledge in a "Making of" at 10:00 each day. In the various "Rooms of Knowledge", visitors can get to know the motivation and ideas, practices and networks of researchers as well as get different perspectives on the approximately 1,400 objects from the collections of Göttingen University.

Covering an area of around 1,200 metres square, the permanent exhibition features an unusual scene, from a book tower to a walk-in desk, to bubble chairs and the proverbial “Holzweg” (a path cut into a forest to collect wood, ultimately leading nowhere). Anyone who wishes can take a tour across disciplines, scanning objects digitally with their mobile phones and listening to experts’ different perspectives about selected exhibits. The Collection Showcase is a place where, in the future, the curators of the academic collections will present changing exhibitions from the university's wealth of collections.

Members of Göttingen University will have already had the opportunity to get to know Forum Wissen one day earlier, on Friday 3 June 2022. The pilot phase of Forum Wissen will be funded for five years by funders including the German government and the state of Lower Saxony, as well as local and regional sponsors. Further information can be found at www.forum-wissen.de and www.forum-wissen.de/en/home-en/