The Freud Museum
Uploaded by terezoula on May 14, 2002
The Freud museum is a small ‘house museum’ which was formerly the home of Sigmund Freud and his family when they escaped the Nazi annexation of Austria. Thus Nazi persecution of Freud led to the extraordinary environment in which he had developed his epoch-making theories being transported, in its entirety, from Vienna to London. It remained the family home until his daughter Anna Freud (1895-1982) died, and it was her wish that the house should become a museum to commemorate her father’s life and work. The Museum was opened in 1986.
The museum contains: Ground floor: Freud’s library (where it is interesting to notice Shakespeare’s, Goethe’s, Haines’s and Multatoli’s books in his bookshelf’s), his study and consulting room (where we can see his original analytic couch and a remarkable collection of antiquities). Freud collected thousands of antiquities during his life from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, as well as Buddhist and Daoist objects from China and the Far East. These objects not only refer back to the religion, mythology and social life of the cultures, which created them. Freud was himself working during the heyday of ‘heroic’ archaeology (remember Indiana Jones) and he likened his psychological procedures to the work of archaeology. Also on the ground floor it’s the Conservatory & dining room that looks out onto the garden (which was designed by his architect son Ernst.), the kitchen, the Hall, the scullery, the WC, the entrance lobby and finally the shop (located in what was previously the loggia of the house designed also by his son) where you can buy various objects such as antiquities (Replicas), books, photographs, pens, mugs etc. On the First floor it’s a small exhibition room, which depicts aspects of Anna’s work and character, Anna Freud’s bedroom, “The Anna Freud room”, a Video room, 2 bathrooms and the balcony. The “Interpretation of Dreams” exhibition is displayed all around the museum.
In my opinion the function of the museum is the educational potential of it, covering a variety of areas, from social history, biography and medical history, to mythology, art & design etc. However, given the nature of Freud’s ideas, we are keen to encourage an interpretative attitude to the collection. For instance, why did Freud collect so many objects? What did specific objects mean to Freud himself? What are the reasons why we ourselves collect things? Many topics can be explored in the museum, which are of...