A new concept for the Wilhelmshaven Küstenmuseum

There has been a close connection between the Küstenmuseum Wilhelmshaven (Coastal Museum) and the NIhK for many decades. The then "Heimat- und Küstenmuseum" of Wilhelmshaven was founded in 1951 in the rooms of the NIhK in the Viktoriastrasse. The cooperation continued even after the spatial and institutional separation took place in 1972 and the Küstenmuseum was integrated into the town administration. The current exhibition which is on view at the Küstenmuseum since 2005, was designed and set up in close cooperation between the NIhK and the Küstenmuseum; in it many results of the research of the NIhK are made accessible to the public. In recent years, there has been much discussion about whether it would make sense to renew the exhibition, above all to make more information about the young and complex urban development of Wilhelmshaven accessible to visitors. Against this background, the Coastal Museum and the NIhK have submitted an application to the Ministry of Science and Culture of the State of Lower Saxony in the funding program "PRO*Niedersachsen – Forschungsprojekte Kulturelles Erbe – Forschung und Vermittlung in ganz Niedersachsen“ to develop a new concept for the exhibition of the Küstenmuseum, which has now been approved. This probably will create conditions for being able to present the development of the Wilhelmshaven area from the medieval marsh settlement, to a naval port, a science location and a tourism center to the energy hub of our days in a contemporary way.