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Key figures

Origin and history

The Musée de mineralogie de Strasbourg is a French scientific museum installed since 1890 in the former building of the Imperial University, now part of the central campus of Strasbourg. It occupies two rooms within the School and Observatory of Earth Sciences (EOST), sharing space with the Hydrology and Geochemistry Laboratory. Managed by the EOST and partner of the University Science Garden, it continues an academic tradition related to the study of minerals and meteorites.

The mineralogic collection originated in the 18th century thanks to Jean Hermann, professor of Strasburg medicine, who formed a natural history cabinet. After his death in 1800, the City of Strasbourg transformed this firm into a museum, before transferring it in 1880 to the scientific collections of the new university. Today, the museum has 30,000 samples of minerals from around the world, many of which come from depleted deposits, making this collection a historical reference, the most important among French universities.

The collection of meteorites, second in France by its magnitude after that of the National Museum of Natural History, includes 450 samples acquired around 1900 by the Imperial University. Famous professors such as Paul Groth (mineralogist), Émile Cohen (petrograph), Wilhelm Brühns and Hugo Bücking contributed to his enrichment. Émile Cohen added a unique series of 44 plaster models, the only such collection in France. Although little modified since 1918, it covers all known meteorite varieties at the time, classified according to the Wasson method.

The museum also preserves scientific instruments from the 19th and 20th centuries, such as X-ray generators, electron diferents, and crystallographic instruments (goniometers, polarizing microscopes). These objects, from the former mineralogy laboratory, illustrate the evolution of analytical techniques. Finally, crystallographic models in glass, cardboard or wood, as well as educational pastels, complete the collections, offering a European quality didactic set.

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