The Museum Quarter Osnabrück unites four houses from different eras: The Felix Nussbaum House (1998) including its extension (2011), the Museum of Cultural History (1888/1899), the Akzisehaus (1807) and the Villa Schlikker (1900/1901).

While the Felix Nussbaum House houses the internationally largest collection of works by the painter Felix Nussbaum, the Museum of Cultural History is dedicated to Osnabrück's city history and an extensive collection of graphic works by Albrecht Dürer, including woodcuts and copper engravings. The Villa Schlikker sees itself as a place of learning against racism and exclusion. The former customs house "Akzisehaus" serves as a venue for various small exhibitions, readings, concerts, lectures and presentations.

The arched bridge

Integrated into the neighbourhood and in particular the Felix Nussbaum House, is the 17th century stone arched bridge (also called the "Ravelin Bridge"). It was rediscovered during the preparations for the construction of the Felix Nussbaum House in 1996. It spanned the city moat and was part of the former Heger Tor Gate bastion. The bridge probably also included a drawbridge and a gate building. Experts believe that this structure was one of the most advanced of its time.

Felix Nussbaum

Born in Osnabrück on 11 December 1904 as the son of the middle-class Jewish merchant spouses Philipp and Rahel Nussbaum, he grew up in an environment of security and musical and artistic influence. In 1924, Felix Nussbaum began studying art in Berlin, where he met his future wife, the Polish painter Felka Platek. Nussbaum started an impressive career. As early as 1932, he travelled to the Villa Massimo in Rome as a study guest of the German Academy. The emerging discrimination after the National Socialists seized power also made itself felt in Italy. Nussbaum left Rome and arrived in Belgium together with Felka Platek in February 1935. With the outbreak of the Second World War and the invasion of German troops, Nussbaum was initially imprisoned in the Saint Cyprien camp in southern France, but fled back to Belgium in the summer of 1940. There he hid with his wife in various places until 1944. On 20 June 1944, they were both arrested and deported to Auschwitz via the Mechelen collection camp and murdered; the date of their deaths is unknown. His paintings, hidden in Brussels, were rediscovered 15 years later by one of Nussbaum's cousins. Like hardly any other artist of his generation, Nussbaum processed the Holocaust in his works. They deal with the themes of flight, expulsion, war and question cultural and religious identity.

The Felix Nussbaum House

With walls butting up against each other at oblique angles, slanted window slits, room dividers projecting crosswise into the room, acute-angled niches and floor cut-outs between the floors covered by gratings, Nussbaum's biography can be experienced visually in the architecture of the Felix Nussbaum House. The use of materials and the orientation of the building sections reflect the various stages of the artist's life. The main wing is clad in German oak and oriented towards Alte-Synagogen-Strasse, symbolising the artist's origins, or childhood. The Walnut Corridor, a windowless, elongated structure made of exposed concrete, stands for the path to exile. It is oriented towards the Villa Schlikker, which housed the party headquarters of the NSDAP between 1933 and 1945. The walnut bridge is faced with zinc sheets. The building materials used symbolise Nussbaum's fate in their increasing coldness.

Daniel Libeskind

The striking Felix Nussbaum House was designed by the US architect and urban planner Daniel Libeskind as his first realised museum building. Opened by the City of Osnabrück in July 1998, the museum invites visitors to view permanent and temporary exhibitions based around the approximately 160 works by Felix Nussbaum. Daniel Libeskind was born in 1946 in Lodz, Poland, and turned to architecture after his first experiences as a professional musician. He studied at renowned universities in the USA and Great Britain. He is responsible for the architecture of numerous buildings, such as the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Holocaust Name Monument in Amsterdam or the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester.

At a glance