Sigmund Freud Museum

In Freud’s former clinic and apartment, the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna is hosting an exhibition on the history of psychoanalysis and the life of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).

Berggasse 19 in Vienna’s 9th district ( Alsergrund ) houses the museum.From 1891 through 1938, Freud lived and worked here.He and his family moved into a new building in 1891.The former structure on this site, which had housed politicians such as Victor Adler, had been razed.Following Austria’s “annexation” to the German Reich, Freud was forced to escape to London with his daughter Anna Freud in 1938, where he died a year later.Marie Bonaparte assisted him in emigrating, and he was allowed to bring all of his belongings with him.In the home, the National Socialist regime established a communal apartment for Jews.

Since 1971, a documentary about his life and work has been shown in the rooms where he resided for 47 years and composed the majority of his works.Changing special exhibitions and a modern art collection demonstrate the impact of psychoanalysis on art and society.The museum is made up of Freud’s former practice and his private residence.The museum size was extended from 280 to 550 square meters during the 2019/2020 expansion.

A library with 40,000 books, Europe’s biggest study library for psychoanalysis, is attached, as is the research institution of the Sigmund Freud Private Foundation, formed in 2003.Since 2002, the museum has maintained a contemporary art store on the ground floor of the building, where the offices of the kosher butcher Siegmund Kornmehl were housed until 1938 (since 2014 under the title Schauraum Berggasse 19 ).Since then, works by contemporary artists on Freud and psychoanalysis-related issues have rotated at irregular intervals in this exhibition area, which can only be viewed via the glass window front.So far, pieces by Josef Kosuth, Louise Bourgeois, Monika Sosnowska, Ernesto Neto, Joan Jonas, Clegg & Guttmann, Franz West, Peter Kogler, Susan Hefuna, and Markus Schinwald have been included.

Original items from Freud’s collection, as well as the practice’s waiting room and certain pieces from Freud’s enormous collection of ancient art, particularly miniature sculptures, are on show in the museum.The majority of the previous interior, including the iconic sofa, is now housed in the Freud Museum in London, where Anna Freud lived until her death in 1982.

In addition to Vienna and London, the Czech Republic maintains a third Freud Museum in Pbor (Freiberg in Moravia) since 2006.The birthplace of Sigmund Freud was made public here.

The Sigmund Freud Society launched the Berggasse museum in 1971, in the presence of Freud’s youngest daughter, Anna Freud.Harald Leupold-Löwenthal, a Viennese psychotherapist, was a key figure in the establishment.In 1996, there was an addition that allowed for unique display and function spaces.The museum was merged into the Sigmund Freud Private Foundation in 2003, with Peter Nömaier as chairman.In 2006, the City of Vienna included the whole Berggasse 19 building into the foundation in order to provide the groundwork for the museum’s enlargement and opening of all locations Freud resided in.

From 1996 to 2013, the museum was directed by Inge Scholz-Strasser; since then, it has been directed by Monika Pessler.Lydia Marinelli, a historian, worked at the Sigmund Freud Museum from 1992 until her death in 2008.

The museum sponsors the Sigmund Freud Lecture, which has been conducted every year on May 6th, Freud’s birthday, since 1970.Prominent psychoanalysts discuss current events in this forum.The Sigmund Freud Society established this lecture, which is currently carried on by the Sigmund Freud Private Foundation.It is presently held at several locations across Vienna.

The museum received 106,315 visitors in 2017.In 2016, 103,722 visitors were recorded.There were 91,322 visitors in 2015, up to 84,293 in 2014.