Stable barn from Asterode

Exhibition building

Built: 1802/1832; at the close of the 19th century/at the beginning of the 20th century
Disassembled: 1983
Reconstructed: 2007 to 2009

In its original location, this two-storey timber-framed barn with a solid brickwork stable extension belonged to a large four-sided farmstead. At the time of its greatest flourishing, it came with about 50 hectares of land. Until the mid-1960s crops were grown and livestock raised. The actual farmstead alone, measuring about 6,000 square metres, contained the residential building with the commercial distillery, two retirement cottages, various buildings to house livestock, barns with horse stables, storage, a vegetable garden and a meadow orchard.

The left part of the building is the oldest part. The dedication stone names David Schreiber, who had the barn built, and his wife Anna Elisabeth, and also the year 1802. According to an inscription, the middle part of the barn was built in 1832, and the extension to the right went up between 1880 and 1920. Johann Heinrich Schreiber, the son of the original owner, expanded the farmstead in the 1840s by building a new dwelling. This Schreiber was the most eminent member of the family, since he was elected as a representative to the assembly of the estates of the Electorate of Hesse in Kassel in 1862. In 1851, a daughter of Schreiber’s, Anna Elisabeth, married the economist Heinrich Haas from Steindorf. This was the beginning of the Haas family’s ownership of the farmstead.

The historic timber-frame structure is a mantle only; it frames a modern steel construction with suspended ceilings. The threshing floor with the great double door has been designed as an open foyer, a sort of gallery space which visitors enter through a glass vestibule.

Since autumn 2009, the Open Air Museum has been operating the Asterode stable barn as a modern, accessible exhibition centre which meets the necessary technical and climatic conditions within the mantle of this historic building. Annually changing exhibitions on topics related to folklore and cultural history are shown on its 300 square metre exhibition area.