Museums in St. Georgen: clocks, sound and art

Almost all the museums in St. Georgen are within walking distance of Hotel FederWERK. Our address is Museumstraße 1, and the name delivers on its promise. Four of them are a few minutes away on foot, the fifth a short walk further. That is why a day of museums here works without a car.

And it is not all one subject. You will find gramophones and turntables from past centuries, the history of technology and industry, contemporary art, relics from the monastery era, and rural tradition and folklore.

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Why there are so many museums in St. Georgen

For generations the town lived on precision engineering. In winter, when the farms were snowed in, farming families built clocks. That first became a craft and finally an industry that supplied markets overseas.

The clockmakers later became engineers. They built turntables, tape recorders and motors, and brands such as DUAL and Perpetuum Ebner were born right here. That is why most museums in St. Georgen circle the same subject from different directions: precision.

There is also a counterpoint you would hardly expect in a town of this size. The Grässlin Collection shows contemporary art of international standing.

The museums in St. Georgen at a glance

German Phono Museum

210 metres

Here you can see and hear the development of sound-recording technology. The exhibition ranges from early cylinders and gramophones to the turntables that were built in this town. Many devices are ready to play. Anyone who grew up with DUAL stays considerably longer than planned.

Hermann Papst
Museum

17 metres

Hermann Papst was an exceptionally productive inventor. Hundreds of patents across very different fields of technology bear his name. The museum shows his life and his developments and is practically next to our front door.

Kunstraum
Grässlin

17 metres

Kunstraum Grässlin is a new form of collector’s museum. The holdings are not shown in a single building but in the Kunstraum and in the Räume für Kunst spread across the whole town. Visits are possible by appointment.

Schwarzes Tor local history museum

88 metres

This house tells of everyday life in the 19th century. You can see how people lived, worked and celebrated back then. Parlours, tools and traditional costumes are on show in one of the oldest buildings in town.

Lapidarium

500 metres

The Lapidarium gathers silent witnesses from the era of the vanished monastery of St. Georgen. The collection of stones is spread across three locations and combines well with a walk.

Technology and Event Museum

800 metres

A large hall filled with motorised vehicles of every kind. Because the hall also serves as an event venue, it is best to check the current opening times before you go.

Kobisenmühle

8.8 kilometres

The restored farm mill shows how laborious it was to produce flour 400 years ago. Getting there does require a car or the bus, though.

Gebäude des Hermann-Papst-Museums in St. Georgen

A walking tour of the museums in St. Georgen

The following order keeps the distances short and ends back at the hotel.

After breakfast you start at Hotel FederWERK. First visit the Hermann Papst Museum and Kunstraum Grässlin, both just around the corner. From there it is two minutes to the Schwarzes Tor local history museum. Next comes the German Phono Museum, for which you should allow more time. On the way back you take in the Lapidarium. To finish, coffee and home-baked cake await you at Restaurant FeinWERK.

Allow three to four hours at an unhurried pace. If you have less time, choose the Phono Museum and the local history museum, as those two offer the greatest contrast.

More places to visit in the area

There are plenty of worthwhile destinations outside town too. The Black Forest Museum in Triberg is 13 kilometres away and shows traditional costumes, crafts and musical automata. At the Dorotheenhütte glassworks in Wolfach, around 30 kilometres away, you can watch glassblowers at work. The Sauschwänzlebahn near Blumberg, 43 kilometres away, runs through tunnels and over viaducts.

Kobisenmühle mit Wasserrad und Schindeldach
Luftaufnahme des Hotel FederWERK über den Dächern von St. Georgen

Hotel FederWERK is part of that history itself

Our house occupies the former Tobias Bäuerle clock factory. Clocks were made here for almost 130 years, after which the building stood empty for a long time. Since 2018 it has been a hotel.

Its origins remain visible: in the proportions, in the materials and in the layout of the rooms. Even the room categories follow the stages of production and are called Development, Production and Sales. Anyone who has visited the museums in St. Georgen will see our house with different eyes afterwards.