page_title: Märkisches Museum
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Märkisches Museum / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: Maerkisches Museum Berlin. The reliefs depict Ludwig Hoffmann (1852-1932), architect of the building (left) and Ernst Friedel (1837-1918), first director of the museum. Sculptures by Evelyn Hartnick, 1992. Deutsch: Märkisches Museum Berlin. Auf den Reliefs sind abgebildet: Ludwig Hoffmann (1852-1932), Architekt des Gebäudes (links) und Ernst Friedel (1837-1918), erster Direktor des Museums. Skulpturen von Evelyn Hartnick, 1992.
context_page_description: The Märkisches Museum is a museum in Mitte, Berlin. Founded in 1874 as the museum of the city of Berlin and its political region, the March of Brandenburg, it occupies a building on the northern edge of Köllnischer Park, facing the Spree, which was designed by Ludwig Hoffmann and completed in 1908. It is now the main facility of the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Landesmuseum für Kultur und Geschichte Berlins, the City of Berlin museum foundation, which also operates four other sites.
context_section_description: In March 1875, Friedel put out a call for the donation or loan of objects of historical or scientific interest, which was so successful that the collection had to move late that year from the old town hall to the Palais Podewils, a Baroque residence in Klosterstraße, and in 1880 to the former town hall of Cölln. At that time it had over 29,500 objects. In addition, Berlin in the "Gründerzeit" was full of demolitions and excavations, which yielded both fragments of old buildings and prehistoric and medieval finds. The collection was crowded and in particular the large pieces taken from churches could not be properly displayed. However, the inventory was not without its uses: an executioner's axe from the collection was used on 16 August 1878 to behead Max Hödel after his attempted assassination of Emperor Wilhelm I.
  At the urging of Friedel, a competition was held in 1892 for a building to house the collection, but the results were disappointing. 76 entries were received, but the winning design, by Wilhelm Möller, proved on examination to be both unsuitable and too expensive, and the architect had died, so the project was shelved.
caption: Reliefs of Ludwig Hoffmann and Ernst Friedel, by Evelyn Hartnick
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