29.05.2009 – For the past six years, Dussmann Service has been responsible for security at the Moritzburg Foundation in Halle. Following the opening of the extension to the museum at the end of last year, the number of exhibits has grown as has the number of Dussmann security staff.

 

By: Anne Honisch
Photo: Moritzburg Foundation

Sunday afternoon at the Moritzburg Foundation. The museum pilgrims are not allowing the beautiful weather distract them and storm one room after the next. At the ticket desk and in the exhibition rooms, Dussmann staff greet guests and secure the exhibits. Secure? Well, nobody is likely to walk off with a two by three meter painting by Kirchner under their arm at 1 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon but that is not what it is about. “When you finish looking at the picture, please slide the panel back in. Bright light damages the prints” requests the attendant when a visitor leaves a drawer open. There is a free-standing block in the exhibition hall which has several drawers, each containing prints by Lyonel Feininger covered with a sheet of glass.

For six years now, the Leipzig branch office of Dussmann Service has providing security at the  Moritzburg Foundation, the Saxony-Anhalt state museum in Halle including gate services, cash points, supervision and guard services. Last year, the foundation opened the museum extension – a masterpiece by the architects Fuesanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano who have combined the medieval Moritzburg castle with a modern museum annex made of glass and aluminum.

Thanks to the extension, the exhibition area has now grown to 2100 m2. This is space that was urgently needed by the state museum as the collection is huge and continually growing. In addition to the museum’s specialty –  20th and 21st century art – the collection includes works from the 19th century, medieval carvings, altars and holy figures which are displayed under the arches of Moritzburg and much more.

One of the most prominent additions of the past years: in 2001, Hermann Gerlinger passed his “Brücke collection”, one of the most important private collections of expressionist art in Germany, to the museum on permanent loan.

Which all means that there is a great deal to do for the 30 Dussmann security staff, and that there is a great deal to see for the visitors.

Detailed information is available at:

 

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