Berlin Science Year
24 July 2010 - 22:43 Filed in: Exhibitions
Five major scientific institutions in Berlin are celebrating their jubilee in 2010. It is 350 years since the Berlin State Library (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) was founded. Three hundred years ago, in 1710, the Charité hospital was erected on the orders of Frederick I, and in the same year the Kurfürstlich Brandenburgische Sozietät der Wissenschaften (Princely Brandenburg Society of the Sciences), which later became the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin Brandenburg Academy of the Sciences), received its first statute. 1810 saw the birth of the Humboldt University, and a century after that it was the turn of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, the forerunner of the Max Planck Society.
The central exhibition ‘Weltwissen’ (‘Universal Knowledge’), in which all five institutions are taking part, will open at the Martin-Gropius-Bau on 24 September. This gives a panoramic retrospect of 300 years of science in Berlin, from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to the Brothers Humboldt and the Brothers Grimm and continuing on to Albert Einstein and Konrad Zuse. The exhibition “World Knowledge” forms the highlight of the Year of Science. Via illustrative stories of objects, researchers and institutions, the exhibition offers insight into the sciences. It illustrates how scientists have developed Berlin into a metropolis of science with a multitude of institutions and museums. The exhibition is a joint production of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the Charité Berlin, the Humboldt University of Berlin and the Max-Planck- Society. Partners are: the State Library of Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Free University Berlin, Technical University Berlin, the Museum of Natural History Berlin, die State Museums of Berlin and the German Museum in Munich.
More information via Berlin - Hauptstadt für die Wissenschaft.