Romantikerhaus

Located in the heart of Jena’s city centre, the Romantikerhaus Jena plays a central role in the research and interpretation of Jena’s Early Romanticism; it belongs to the Städtische Museen Jena and is part of the Eigenbetrieb JenaKultur. As the only museum in municipal ownership in Jena, it is exclusively dedicated to commemorating the cultural flowering around 1800 and to examining its significance for the art and culture of modernity.

The museum is housed in the former residence of the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, but it differs from the historical “Romantikerhaus” that was once occupied at Leutragasse 5 by August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel and their wives and that was destroyed in the 1945 bombing. The present building was erected around 1669 on the then city outskirts near the southeastern city wall and is today located not far from the Roter Turm. Dendrochronological evidence dates the roof beams to the winters of 1667/68 and 1668/69. During large-scale urban redevelopment in the 20th century it remained the only pre-modern house in the vicinity. Before its use as a museum the building served as a residence, among others for the composer Adam Drese, the physician Karl Wilhelm Stark and for Fichte, who came to Jena in 1794 and acquired the house in 1795.

The widespread designation “Romantikerhaus am Löbdergraben” arose from commemorative plaques that have been attached to various façades since the 19th century; plaques for the Schlegels were originally placed on the neighbouring house (the so-called Haus Rößler) and were transferred to the façade of the Fichte house after urban interventions, which helped solidify the legend.

The building began to be used for museum purposes in 1981, when the ground floor was established as a memorial to German Early Romanticism; the upper floors housed the Jenaer Kunstsammlung until 1998. In 1999 the present Romantikerhaus Jena opened as a literary museum. The permanent exhibition is dedicated on the ground floor to the republic of scholars around 1800 and Fichte’s philosophy, on the first floor to the work of the Jena Early Romantics, their New Mythology, the influence of the French Revolution and Jena’s publishing industry. The second floor focuses on Romantic natural sciences with Johann Wilhelm Ritter and Novalis and contains two temporary exhibition rooms. Since 2000 the house has awarded the Caroline-Schlegel-Preis. After an incident in 2021 the building was renovated and reopened in 2022; since then the house has increasingly defined itself as an interdisciplinary place of cultural encounter that brings together literature, philosophy, visual arts and social contexts.