The Provincial Museum Yazd & National Museum Teheran

Cooperation Partners: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Iran Culture Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO), Teheran
Project management: Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn: Susanne Annen, Dipl. Arch., Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin: Dr. Ute Franke
Project Assistance: Alexandra Gath, M.A.
Funding: Gerda Henkel Stiftung, Düsseldorf
Duration: 2017‒2022

The project “The Provincial Museum Yazd. Safeguarding Cultural Heritage – Fostering Regional Identities“ is designed for a period of three years. The Iranian province of Yazd has an impressive history that reaches back to pre-Islamic times. Its capital city is shaped by historically important buildings from the 12th to 15th century. The well-preserved historic center with its clay buildings, cooling houses and wind towers was included on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2017, the unique qanat irrigation system of the region has been registered in 2016. In the so-called Sadrololama, a historical complex in the heart of the city, a modern provincial museum will be established, on the basis of current conceptual and conservational standards, and opened in 2020/2021. For this purpose, ICHHTO has been renovating the historical buildings designated as a museum since 2015.

Conservators, curators, archaeologists and other museum staff will develop new skills in close collaboration with ICHHTO and the local university through training programs and workshops for their future tasks in research, conservation and museum management. The overall objective of the project is to strengthen regional identities and to function as a role model for other provincial museums in the country. For this purpose, the art, architecture, history and crafts of the region will be researched, documented, interpreted and presented in a visitor-oriented manner.

Cooperation Partners: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz; Iran Culture Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO), Teheran
Project management: Bundeskunsthalle,  Bonn: Susanne Annen, Dipl. Arch., Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin: Dr. Ute Franke
Project assistance: Alexandra Gath, M.A.
Funding: Gerda Henkel Stiftung, Düsseldorf
Duration: 2017–2022

The two-year project aims to set-up a documentation and administration system in the Museum of Islamic Art of the National Museum in Teheran. About 15,000 objects of the total inventory of the National Museum belong to the collections of the Museum of Islamic Art, newly opened in 2015. Adapted to the local requirements an on-site object-oriented data management system will be developed and implemented with the assistance of local authorities. It will be used as an important infrastructural tool for the documentation and management of the museum´s inventory.

For the pilot project the findings from the excavations of the German Archaeological Institute at Tacht-e Soleyman will be registered. Since a large number of objects found their way to Berlin due to find distribution and are currently recorded in the Museum of Islamic Art Berlin, the project offers the opportunity to digitally combine the two collections. Experiences and results of the pilot project will subsequently be used in connection with other museums, for example in the provincial museum in Yazd.