Information obtained from the German Museum of Hygiene Website
GERMAN MUSEUM
OF HYGIENE IN DRESDEN
Wilhelm Kreis, a leading architect, envisioned an innovative museum which would reflect all knowlege about the "human organism". He built this museum in Dresden, Germany based upon the idea and money of Martin Roth who first envisioned this museum and who provided funding in his 1911 will.
This new museum was devoted to human organism, hygiene and healthy mode of life and was to depict general idea of human physiology. According to the conception, art was of the same importance as biology, ethnology or medicine and, the investigation results had to be popularized in generally accepted terms.
The model of "a glass man" made for the German Museum of Hygiene is known all over the world. It is the exhibit which can be called the icon of the 30ies of our century. The model had been created 2 years previously and then was exhibited in 1930 at the Second International Exhibition of Hygiene in the building of the Museum in the Lingner Square in Dresden.
The museum and staff were active participants in all international medical conferences for many years.
In 1945, the museum was destroyed by Allied bombing raids which virtually destroyed the entire city of Dresden, but the museum was rebuilt after the war and now featured a "glass woman".