Finsterau Open-Air Museum

Everything cramped – but functional

If you enter the narrow courtyard from the road through the high wooden gate, the dwelling is located on the right side. It is a two-storied building made of brick, and it faces the east and south – i.e. it faces the road and courtyard – with large windows. The northern side is almost windowless, because at the farmstead’s old location in Einberg near Grafenau the building was very closely connected to the buildings of the neighbouring farm.



The dwelling also contains the cowshed made of cobblestone and a wooden barn. Opposite along the southern side of the farmstead is a slightly lower building that contains the washhouse, baking oven, tractor garage, a living room and a shed for wagons and equipment.
The equipment is partially reconstructed. Media rooms and classrooms are set up on the upper floor of the dwelling. The environment of the farmstead with garden and watering place is lively and compartmentalised. The museum’s cattle are put in the cowshed over the winter. Then the manure heap in the narrow inner courtyard increases and in the entrance hall of the house the warmth and smell of the animals can be experienced.

The rich painting of the small bedroom and the stucco decoration of the façade stem from 1922.

Closed three-sided farmstead consisting of dwelling & barn building (1879, renovated in 1922), farm building (1900) and bridged threshing floor (1887) – 1879: founding of the premises; after 1970: cessation of cultivation – 1989: documentation; 1990-1994: transfer – display period around 1960