Good Collecting – Bad Collecting
About the exhibition
On 29 April 1876 Emperor Franz Joseph I signed the legal documents establishing the Natural History Museum Vienna, and on 30 April 1876 he appointed the geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter as its first director. At that time, the museum building on Vienna's Ringstrasse was already under construction – it was finally opened in August 1889.
Today, the museum houses one of the world's most important natural science collections with more than 30 million objects. But how did this unique collection come into being? And what stories lie behind 150 years of collecting, research and discovery?
The exhibition invites visitors to explore the history of the museum while also taking a critical look at the darker sides of collecting.
Discover and Understand
The Vienna Natural History Museum is a unique archive documenting the origin and evolution of the Earth and life. It chronicles the history and structure of our planet, showcases the diversity of life on Earth, and provides insight into human evolution. Like almost no other natural history museum, it explores the entire spectrum of nature—past and present—through biological, geological, paleontological, mineralogical, anthropological, prehistoric, and cultural-historical objects.
The Story Behind the Objects
Some objects seem to have two sides, as they are scientifically unique yet simultaneously tainted by the problematic circumstances of their acquisition. Were the famous 19th-century expeditions an honorable attempt to expand knowledge and acquire exotic objects for the imperial collections—or was a colonial agenda the true motivation? How were objects handled that were acquired unlawfully during the Nazi era , and how should we evaluate pieces that entered the collections through ethically questionable means?
Depending on one’s perspective, an object functions either as a neutral carrier of scientific information or as a manifestation of questionable collection methods. Depending on one’s perspective, a collection object may be materially valuable yet of little scholarly interest. Conversely, an inconspicuous, tiny insect may be a one-of-a-kind specimen whose loss cannot be measured in monetary terms.
