Davos exhibition: How a municipality moved literature, art, politics and science

From November 28, the Kirchner Museum in Davos, Switzerland, will be focusing fully on the spa town's historical significance. The exhibition house proudly displays works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner as well as original diaries, notes and photographs from the Thomas Mann Archive at ETH Zurich, which introduce visitors to the background of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain; Davos served him as the setting for his novel. From this promising collection of works, the museum is currently creating the exhibition Europa auf Kur. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Thomas Mann und der Mythos Davos, which can be visited from November 28, 2021 to October 30, 2022.

The symbolic power of Davos, now a community of 10,000 people, goes back some 150 years: once the high mountain air there was supposed to cure tuberculosis, today the place is still synonymous with a pulmonary health resort. It was in this context that Thomas Mann also got to know Davos - he traveled there in 1912 during a visit to his wife, who was suffering from lung disease.   

In addition to its Europe-wide status as a health resort, Davos also serves as a winter sports destination, attracting important personalities then as now: among them the museum's namesake Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who turned his back on his adopted home of Berlin and settled in Davos, but also greats such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Albert Einstein and Sonja Henie. Finally, the exhibition focusing on »Myth of Davos« will also tell their stories. This form of event is in a way a novelty, because Davos becomes the subject of such an extensive exhibition of works for the first time. The cooperation project with the Germanisches National Museum in Nuremberg draws connecting lines between medical and spa history, architecture, winter sports, art and literature, philosophy and politics.