Restorations
The Hessenpark Open Air Museum has been open to visitors for about 40 years. Many of our buildings, some of them as old as 400 years, have aged during this time and sometimes this shows in their condition. They might be damaged, and the causes for these damages are manifold: Not all of the houses had been tempered, and sometimes materials were used for reconstruction which have been proven inadequate in the meantime. What we know today about construction and maintenance of historical buildings allows us now to apply modern standards.
The first group of buildings which was to undergo restoration was the Middle Hesse ensemble in the season 2007/2008. Since then, the buildings of the open-air museum have been restored successively. Restoring is mainly about re-establishing the functionality of the buildings, conserving their value and prolonging the life of the buildings. A fundamental technique of preserving buildings is tempering, which has become a standard procedure in most open-air museums. Each restored house undergoes at least tempering of the base. Moreover, other conservational measures are taken, among them treating the timber frame against in insects or exchanging damaged wood with wood that is mature and free of damage and that has been used before. On the outside, restoring of the timber frames and repairing panels and plaster are the tasks to be tackled first to ensure the preservation of the old buildings. The interior and its furnishings and exhibitions are designed to reflect our knowledge today as well as meet the expectations of the visitors. Of course, this extensive work requires qualified and trained specialists and plenty of time.
The required renovation measures create a new and different way for visitors to experience the historical buildings. Therefore, the museum presents show construction sites and offers public guided tours focusing on different aspects of the restoration process. In these tours, the guides explain why and how restoration work is carried out. Dates and topics can be found in our events calendar.