GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts, Germany

The Grassi complex, built in Art Deco style, houses three museums: the Museum of Applied Arts, the Museum of Ethnology (also an ASEMUS member), and the Museum of Music Instruments. Its centerpiece is the Art Deco column hall, named for twelve ceiling-high triangular columns, rendered in red-gold-blue and considered unmatched in Europe. Vegetated inner courtyards, the old Johannis cemetery park, and a museum café round out the site.

History: after tradesman/patron Franz Dominic Grassi (1801-1880) died, Leipzig inherited his estate and used it to fund the Gewandhaus, the Mende fountain, and an original Grassi museum, later sold to fund today's building at Johannis square, erected 1925-1929. Heavily damaged in WWII, it was only provisionally rebuilt afterward, then fully refurbished 2001-2005.

The Museum of Applied Arts holds over 90,000 items (textiles, ceramics, porcelain, furniture, glass, metals, coins, medals, Asian collections), plus roughly 50,000 graphic sheets and 70,000 photographs. Three permanent exhibition areas: - "From Antiquity to Historism" (~2000 m²): Italian Renaissance maiolica, a monastery refectory panelling from Cori near Rome, chinoiserie wall covering from a manor near Zehmen, and a restored Roman Hall from Eythra; Saxon/Leipzig historical works. - "Asian Art – Impulses for Europe" (~300 m²): roughly 6,000 objects from China, Japan, Korea, Iran, Turkey and India. - "From Art Nouveau to the Present Day": Art Nouveau through Bauhaus, 1950s design, East German design, and contemporary pieces, including a reconstructed 1936 Grassi Fair booth for United Lusatian Glassworks.

The annual GRASSI TRADE FAIR (late October) is one of Europe's major applied-arts and design sales expositions.