Dresden Transport Museum
The Verkehrsmuseum Dresden, the Dresden Transport Museum, shows road, rail, air and water transport in the Johanneum on the Neumarkt, a building put up in the late 16th century as the Saxon court's stables.
What it is
Besides the exhibitions on the four branches of transport, the museum has space for special exhibitions and an area for children. The museum has been a non-profit company (gGmbH) since 2006, with the City of Dresden as its sole shareholder since 2010.
History
The Johanneum was built from 1586 as the stables of the Saxon court. In the 18th century the stables were converted into the court's picture gallery. After the paintings moved to Gottfried Semper's new gallery in 1872, the building was rebuilt as the Historical Museum and from then on called the Johanneum. It was heavily damaged in the bombing of 1945.
The museum's collection goes back to 1877, the start of the collection of what became the Saxon Railway Museum in 1902. The museum was founded in 1952, linked to the founding of the Hochschule für Verkehrswesen after the Second World War, as one of the first cultural institutions of the GDR.
The damaged building was given to the museum in 1954, and its first exhibition opened in 1956 for Dresden's 750th anniversary. The permanent exhibitions followed as the Johanneum was rebuilt, beginning with railways in 1958. Since 2024 the museum has held the Johanneum for 30 years under a heritable building right agreed with the Free State of Saxony and the city.