Histories & Stories in the Salzburg Museum

The Salzburg Museum

The heart of the Salzburg Museum with the art and cultural history of the town and province of Salzburg is the Neue Residenz with its prominent address Mozartplatz 1. Just around the corner are the Salzburg Glockenspiel and the Panorama Museum, and opposite is the DomQuartier, with the north oratory, presenting exhibitions every two years. A look up to Hohensalzburg Fortress offers a view of the Fortress Museum. In the Old Town there is also the Cathedral Excavation Museum on Residenzplatz and the Toy Museum at the end of Getreidegasse in the Bürgerspital. Outside the town, the Folklore Museum is enthroned upon Hellbrunn Hill and in Hallein – about 15 kilometres south of Salzburg – the Celtic Museum and the Silent Night Museum highlight the impressive diversity of the Salzburg Museum.

Each of these buildings tells a story, and we would like to take a closer look at three of them here.

The New Residence: in tune with the town

The roots of this museum go back to 1834, but it was only in 2007 that the Neue Residenz became the museum's main building. At that time, the name was also changed to today's "Salzburg Museum", because from 1850 to 2007 the full name was "Salzburg Museum Carolino Augusteum", named after the Empress Dowager Caroline Auguste. On around 3000 m2 of exhibition space, the history of the baroque town from the prince archbishops to the present day is shown in an interactive, interesting and entertaining way. Regional exhibitions on Salzburg's most important topics and anniversaries are presented in the New Residence.

The Panorama Museum: a glimpse into the past

If you want to make a direct comparison between Salzburg in 1829 and today, the Panorama Museum is the best place. Johann Michael Sattler's 100 m2 circular painting shows the city and its surroundings on a sunny autumn afternoon, around 4 pm. The depiction is amazingly accurate topographically; you can even observe details of daily life in early-19th-century Salzburg. Sattler took this picture with him on many trips and was thus probably Salzburg's first tourism ambassador. For the aforementioned comparison with today, one only needs to visit the fortress – which is of course missing from the painting because the painter at the time and the viewers today look down on the city from above.

A kingdom for children: Hands on in the Toy Museum 

Play, experience, marvel – that is the focus of the Toy Museum. Take off your shoes and feel at ease. They can climb, try things out, do crafts and even rest in a specially equipped break room. It goes without saying that the toys are placed at eye level for children and that each special exhibition is interspersed with loving details and interactive adventures. Adults play more of a supporting role here, but they are welcome to be nostalgic or let out their inner child and join in.

The museum in the 21st century

The purpose of a museum like the Salzburg Museum with its ten locations, so widely diverse and with an almost infinite range of potential topics, is not solely to process history. It needs to stay up to date, dealing with modern technologies and addressing new target groups. This entails social inclusion and accessibility as well as new media. A good example of such tireless repositioning is the podcast Museum am Sofa (started in March 2020), which relates curious and informative stories from past centuries – bringing a bit of Salzburg into the living-rooms of the entire German-speaking world.