Pforzheim Jewellery Museum

>> Discover the exhibition program for 2025

The Reuchlinhaus.
Designed by Manfred Lehmbruck, The Reuchlin House, inaugurated in 1961 as the Pforzheim Municipal Cultural Centre, is a jewel of architecture. Designed in the ‘International Style’ by the architect Manfred Lehmbruck, it has always been one of the most architecturally interesting buildings in the Museum complex.

The Reuchlinhaus is a masterwork of post-war German architecture. Built in 1957-61 as the municipal cultural centre, it presents itself in the clean lines of the International Style. Its lobby and heart is the square entrance hall, a foyer flooded with light and offering a view of luxuriant greenery through its huge panoramic windows. The focal point of the upper foyer is a circular opening for the free-standing spiral staircase leading to the ground floor. The lobby is the start and recurrent meeting-point for guided tours.

An Ark for Culture.
After total war-time destruction on February 23, 1945, the cultural institutions in Pforzheim with their greatly decimated holdings eventually found, as in a Noah’s Ark, a new home in the Reuchlinhaus for the municipal archives, museums and the Kunstverein with its rich tradition. It takes its name in honour of the city’s most famous son, the scholar, writer and lawyer Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522).

The Architect.
Manfred Lehmbruck (1913-1993), who was born in Paris and grew up in Zürich and Berlin, was a son of the famous sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck. In the 1930s, Mies van der Rohe arranged for Lehmbruck to work at the Paris office of Auguste Perret, France’s leading architect, where he found the model for his spectacular spiral staircase. In 1942, he took his degree with a doctoral thesis on ‘Museum Architecture of the Future’. After internment and active service, Lehmbruck opened an office for industrial architecture in Stuttgart. His breakthrough came in 1953, when he won the Pforzheim competition.
/ Dr. Christoph Timm


Pforzheim Jewellery Museum.

From Antiquity to the Present.
The collection on permanent display focuses on treasures from Greco-Roman antiquity, the Renaissance and Jugendstil/Art Nouveau as well as contemporary art jewellery. The history of the jewellery industry in the ‘golden’ city of Pforzheim is also surveyed. In addition, visitors can continue to rediscover the Museum at regular special exhibitions.

From all over the World.
Since the Museum re-opened in spring 2006 after undergoing extensive remodelling, additional fields have been featured: jewellery from the Eva and Peter Herion Collection of Ethnographic Jewellery provides insights into the ways non-European, non-Western societies express themselves in adornment – the island world of Oceania, Nagaland in India or the Near East.

Jewellery on a Chain: Pocket Watches.
Ingeniously wrought pocket watches from the collection amassed by the Pforzheim watch manufacturer Philipp Weber document the craft of the watch-maker and goldsmith from the 17th to the 19th centuries – the technical advances made in mechanical watch movements as well as changing fashions and varying national styles in watch design.

The Café and Museum Shop.
Visitors looking for a brief break are invited to enjoy the café with its views of the Stadtgarten. Moreover, the Museum Shop invites you to browse.


>> Enjoy the collection at Google Arts & Culture

>> Enjoy the permanent virtual exhibition Herta Gebhart, the Coco Chanel from Westphalia. Pforzheim's Jewellery Museum online photo exhibition



Opening hours:
Tu-Su and holidays: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Closed at: Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve
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