House of Naturalists

House of Naturalists – The former headquarters of the Naturalist Society adjacent to St. Mary’s Gate. The Naturalist Society was located here for 100 years – from 1845 to 1945. It hosted exhibitions of natural history and archaeological collections. It also housed a scientific reading room of 20,000 volumes. The building itself was erected much earlier, as early as the end of the 16th century, as the house of merchant Hans Köpe, and even this was not the beginning of the buildings existing at this location, as a Gothic-style tenement house had stood here before. As a result of warfare, the House of Naturalists was completely destroyed during World War II, as was the neighboring St. Mary’s Gate. It was rebuilt in 1956-1961 in an exterior form similar to the historic one, but inside the original layout was not restored. It now houses the Archeological Museum.