The Deutsches Hygiene-Museum was founded in 1912 by Odol manufacturer Karl-August Lingner as a museum without its own dedicated premises. An initial competition scheduled in 1919 had proved inconclusive and so, in 1926, the architect Wilhelm Kreis was entrusted with designing a modern museum building.
As a young architect Wilhelm Kreis had made a name for himself with the ‘Bismarck Towers’; he subsequently built, among other things, the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle/Saale and numerous large department stores throughout the German Empire. For the Dresden project, he came recommended on the strength of the premises he designed for the groundbreaking Düsseldorf Exhibition Ge-So-Lei (Gesundheit – Soziale Fürsorge – Leibesübungen [Health – Social Welfare – Physical Exercise]), which have been preserved on the banks of the Rhine to this day. The Dresden museum was completed by 1930 just outside the old city centre, in the grounds of the baroque Sekundogenitur building. It not only provided space for exhibitions, administration and workshops, but also opportunities to stage cultural and scientific events in its Small and Great Halls. The architecture vividly reflected the concept of the premises as a museum and an institution devoted to public education.
