Museums in Kitzbühel
From the 12th century, when it was a mining town generating copper and silver, Kitzbühel boasts a rich and interesting past. It evolved over ages into a thriving commerce hub and a well-liked tourist destination drawing people from all around the globe. Combining history with modernity, local and worldwide influences, and natural and urban features, Kitzbühel’s culture reflects its varied and dynamic past as well as its present.
Seeing Kitzbühel’s museums, which provide a window into the town’s identity, values, and accomplishments, is one of the greatest ways to value her cultural environment. Museums offer objects, artwork, and stories that reflect the history and inventiveness of the community, therefore helping to preserve and present the local culture. As they include guests with interactive exhibits, educational programs, and special events, museums also offer a chance for learning and fun.
When you first visit Kitzbühel, one of the first things you will notice is how elegantly its buildings capture the historical and cultural development of the town. Kitzbühel’s several museums are housed in old buildings, which accentuates their authenticity and charm. These structures maintain the experiences and tales of the individuals who lived and worked in them, therefore they are also history homes rather than just museum venues.
For instance, the historic structure of the **Museum Kitzbühel**, which displays Kitzbühel’s art and history, comes from the sixteenth century. Originally a granary, the construction later housed a town hall, a hospital, and a school. The museum features artworks, records, and relics showing the evolution of the town from a mediaeval mining town to a contemporary travel destination. Along with the greatest collection of works by local painter **Alfons Walde**, who expressedistly captured the beauty and spirit of the Alps, the museum also houses
Celebrating the ski history and culture of the town, the **Kitzbühel Ski Museum** is another instance of a historical museum construction. Among the oldest structures in Kitzbühel, the museum is housed in a former farmhouse constructed in 1671. From its beginnings in the 19th century to its present prominence as a world-class ski resort, the museum displays ski equipment, apparel, prizes, and images capturing the town’s ski history. The museum also celebrates the accomplishments of regional ski stars such **Toni Sailer**, **Hans Hinterseer**, and **Karl Schranz**.
Many of the museums in Kitzbühel feature interactive displays and provide a range of events and experiences suitable for guests of all kinds. For instance, the **Hexenwasser Shop** is an interactive adventure park inviting you to explore the beauty and mystery of water, not a standard museum. Discover more than 60 stations showcasing the several water-related features and phenomena including rainbows, geysers, water wheels, and fountains. You might also visit the bee home, enjoy the panoramic mountain views, or unwind on the barefoot trail. Reached by cable car from Söll, the Hexenwasser Shop is a part of the **SkiWelt Wilder Kaiser – Brixental**, one of Austria’s biggest ski resorts.
The **Kitzbühel Mining Museum**, which chronicles the mining history and culture of the town, is another instance of a museum with interactive displays in Kitzbü hel. Located on a former mine, the museum lets guests explore the miners’ subterranean environment. See the equipment and machinery, stroll across the tunnels, and learn about mining’s methods and difficulties. Along with a children’s area, a mineral display, and a multimedia exhibit, the museum boasts Discovering the past and present of the town is made possible at the unusual and intriguing Kitzbühel Mining Museum.
Museum Kitzbühel
Nestled among two of the oldest historic buildings in the town, the Museum Kitzbühel – Alfons Walde Collection offers a unique window into the past and culture of Kitzbühel and the surrounds. Through well chosen exhibitions and video and sound works, visitors are guided through the history of the town and winter sports with Toni Sailer and the renowned “Kitzbühel Ski Miracle Team” of the 1950s. Alfons Walde is the major focus of the museum’s permanent collection. With 60 paintings and more than 100 graphics, drawings, photographs, and prints, the Kitzbühel painter’s work is on show mostly on the third floor and attic.
Born in Oberndorf, close to Kitzbühel, Alfons Walde in 1891 Although he studied architecture in Vienna and developed into a famous designer, painting was always his real interest. Inspired by the expressionist movement, he developed his own technique of capturing the people that lived in the Alpine environment. To create colorful and energetic images of skiing, farming, and village life, he combined brilliant colors, geometric patterns, and dynamic compositions. He also created pictures of well-known people such composer Richard Strauss and author Thomas Mann.
Of the Tyrolean artists, Walde was among the most well-known and powerful. He planned shows and cultural events as well as contributed to form the Kitzbühel Artists’ Guild. Additionally he created the posters and emblem for the most elite ski event in the world, the Hahnenkamm race, which runs annually in Kitzbühel. Having passed death in Kitzbühel in 1958, he left behind a rich and varied body of prints, drawings, and paintings.
Covering his whole career, the Museum Kitzbühel boasts the biggest and most complete collection of Walde’s works. Some of the highlights consist in:
- Winter Day in Kitzbühel (1926): Winter Day in Kitzbühel (1926) shows the town and mountains from a panoramic perspective with skiers and sleighs front and foremost. Along with his love of his homeland, the picture reveals Walde’s mastery of color and perspective.
- The Red Church (1930): With a group of people strolling toward the red church tower, the white snow stands in a stark contrast. The picture captures Walde’s fascination in the social and religious facets of Tyrolean life.
- Ski Race (1931): With the skiers in various stances and attitudes, this lively and vibrant portrayal of a ski race Together with Walde’s own participation as a skier and promoter, the artwork catches the thrill and difficulty of the sport.
Anyone who wants to know more about the town and its culture has to see the Museum Kitzbühel. It provides a special window into the life and career of Alfons Walde, among the most significant and powerful painters from the Tyrolean area. It also offers an interesting summary of Kitzbühel’s history, from the Bronze Age to the present including its evolution as a sporting destination. The museum is housed in a historic granary building right in the middle of the town. It opens Tuesday through Sunday, from 10:00 to 17:00. For adults, the admission charge is eight euros; for elderly and students, it is four; and for children under fourteen it is free. The museum conducts guided tours, seminars, and special events as well.
Bauernhausmuseum
The museum is totally devoted to the life and efforts of historical mountain farmers and peasants. On show are a functional flour mill from 1770, a weaving room, a cobbler’s and saddler’s workshop, big agricultural machinery, and Jochberg’s first sports cable vehicle. Accessing the Hinteroberau Farmhouse Museum on the sunny side of Kitzbühel, directly below the Kitzbüheler Horn, one follows the Römerweg. Spaced among rich meadows and woods, the weathered classic Salzburg-Tyrolean Einhof features buildings including a laundry, chapel, oven, bee house, and threshing floor. It is absolutely worth a visit; there is a great variety of tools, furnishings, and equipment on show.
Along with explaining the house and the artifacts, the museum’s audio guide—which is available in four foreign languages—offers further background material to help one grasp the rural culture and history.The museum also hosts unique displays on sustainability, mowing, patchwork, Christian faith and peasant life.
Open daily from June 1 to October 14, from 13:00 to 17:00, the Bauernhausmuseum Hinterobernau Adults pay five euros the admittance fee; youngsters pay three euros.Using the guest card “Red Card,” from Kitzbühel Tourism, visitors may enjoy a discount.
Krampusmuseum
The Krampusmuseum Kitzbühel exhibits and promotes real Krampus customs. The museum opened its doors in April 2010 thanks to a grant from the city of Kitzbühel. A great joint effort by the Ruat’n Pass Kitzbühel is driving the building of more and more spaces for the exhibition of the robes and masks. Association events and optional admission payments provide the funding for these displays.
Legendary Krampus derived from Alpine tradition from nations including Austria, Germany, and Switzerland comes from The Krampus is shown traditionally as a hairy, goat-like monster with horns, teeth, a long tongue, and hooves. Saint Nicholas’s feast day, December 6, is when the Krampus represents Santa Claus, bestowing gifts upon moral children. As punishment, the Krampus drags disobedient children to hell, packs them into a sack, or lashes them with birch twigs.
Particularly in the Tyrolean region of Austria—where Kitzbühel is located—many Alpine areas have a very active Krampus custom. Apart from a well-known ski resort, Kitzbühel is a mediaeval town with 1200s roots. Furthermore housed in Kitzbühel is the remarkable Krampusmuseum, which preserves and exhibits the regional Krampus customs and culture.
Opening the Krampusmuseum in April 2010, the Ruatn Pass Kitzbühel is a group of Krampus supporters that host and visit the annual celebrations. The town of Kitzbühel kindly let the museum use a former school building. The museum’s collection of more than 400 regional masks, costumes, accessories, and historical records about the Krampus takes over 700 square meters of area.
This fascinating museum offers something to everyone interested in the causes, explanations, and diversity of the Krampus phenomena. Along with the skill and inventiveness of the mask-carvers, the museum exhibits handcrafted masks created from horns, fur, wood, and other materials. Visitors may view the mask-carvers on display as well as get the opportunity to try on the masks.
The goal of the museum is to teach and entertain visitors while dispelling false ideas about the Krampus. Visiting the museum or participating in the Ruatn Pass will allow you to meet friendly and fascinating people ready to share stories about the Krampus and address any questions you could have. Among the several events and activities the museum organizes all year long are seminars, exhibits, talks, and guided tours.
Visit the Krampusmuseum in Kitzbühel everyone fascinated in Alpine mythology, culture, or practices. You can visit this museum free regardless of the season; entrance is totally voluntary. The museum is a great place to visit amid Advent when Kitzbühel hosts several Krampus events including the Krampuslauf, Nikolausumzug, and Perchtenlauf. As they march through the streets to the accompaniment of music, fire, and smoke at these festivities, hundreds of Krampus performers present an amazing and unforgettable performance.
Kitzbühel’s Krampusmuseum has more than first greets the eye. It is a vivid expression of a valued habit spanning generations. Guests can explore the dark and light, old and modern, Krampus’s frightening and interesting, world and have fun doing it here. At this site, discover the mystery and magic of the Krampus, a monster capable of both a symbol of punishment and a cause of delight.
Museum Jochberg
The museum exhibits both natural and cultural objects from the Jochberg region. The Vorderkünstler Farmers’ Museum, which transports guests to the age of traditional farming by means of historical tour, has been housed there since 2004. Apart from the first sporting cable car in Jochberg, guests may view massive farm gear on display, a running wheat mill from 1770, and a weaving area. Among other fascinating fossil displays, here you may find one of the largest collections in Austria. Hunter’s parlour allows you to get close to and personal with native animal species and hunting tools.
On exhibit at the Museum Jochberg, Jochberg and the Kitzbühel area boasts a treasure of cultural relics. First opened to the public in 1977, the museum resides on top floor of the community center. The museum exhibits objects from the mining, agricultural, handicap, religious, and cultural life of the nearby residents.
Jochberg was a center for copper and silver mining from the Bronze Age forward. The museum exhibits tools, machinery, records from the rise and decline of the mining business. From the deep tunnels to the smelting furnaces, you can see every stage of the ore’s trip from the mines to the markets. Apart from the hazards and challenges the miners faced, you might learn about how mining impacted the economy and the society.
Most of Jochberg’s residents were farmers, tending to crops and breeding cattle on the alpine meadows. Showing in the museum are several agricultural tools including plows, sickles, scythes, and hay forks. On show is also the method the farmers turned their harvests into bread, butter, cheese, and schnapps. Part of the museum is the 2004-opened Bauernmuseum Vorderkünstler, which focuses on farmhouses. Situated in a rebuilt structure dating back to 1770, the museum boasts still in operational order a grain mill, kitchen, living room, and bedroom.
Apart from their expertise in ceramics, woodworking, weaving, knitting, embroidery, and pottery, the Jochberg people possessed a great spectrum of other abilities. Among the goods on show in the museum are furniture, baskets, rugs, draperies, tablecloths, and ceramics. Here, the complex designs and themes represent the local aesthetic and culture. Furthermore, you can see the artists fashion these beautiful and useful products using simple tools and materials.
Strong Catholics, Jochberg citizens lived their daily lives mostly based on their faith. The museum features many sacred treasures on exhibit: sculptures, paintings, crucifixes, rosaries, and candles. Additionally on exhibit are the customs and rites of religious holidays including weddings, Easter, Christmas, and Corpus Christi. The St. Wolfgang Church, the oldest and most identifiable construction in the area, is also included in the museum. The building of the 14th-century church determines both its Gothic outside and baroque inside design.
There are proud and traditional people living in Jochberg that really enjoy their background. Among the objects and costumes on exhibit at the museum that honor the regional customs and culture are masks, caps, bells, and flags. Among others, this page provides details on local folklore and stories including those about the Jochberg Dragon, the Jochberg Witch, and the Jochberg Treasure. Apart from year-round displays, guided tours, talks, and seminars, the museum organizes several other events and activities.
