The changing face of science and technology in the Ehrensaal of the Deutsches Museum, 1903-1955

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The Ehrensaal (Hall of Honour) originally distilled to its strongest form the DM‘s message about science and technology. The museum founders intended it to perform an ideological yet apolitical function, a contra-diction that the present study examines through archival material from the museum’s first half-century. Initially the Ehrensaal was meant to parallel and strengthen the museum’s argument that scientists and engineers were just as creative and worthy of veneration as artists. Attempts to make the Ehrensaal a neutral and artistically stunning space ended with the First World War, and developments outside the museum continually enmeshed the room, changing its contents and meaning.