Room to play: our theme for 2024

The Francke Foundations' annual programme for 2024 under the motto »Spielraum« (room to play) focuses on the valuable collection of models for school lessons from around 1700 in the Cabinet of Artefacts and Natural Curiosities. Their creator, the Halle theologian Christoph Semler (1669-1740), together with August Hermann Francke (1663-1727), founded a completely new type of school, the Realschule. Playing with the detailed lathe, the printing press or the fishing boat touches on the most diverse spheres of culture. Playing creates freedom, which is important for innovation, is a motor for scientific knowledge as well as an opportunity to try out and practise social processes. The events in the Francke Foundations' annual programme invite you to take a differentiated look at education, creativity, visualisation and play. It is embedded in the 15th city-wide cultural theme year under the motto ‘Come out to play’, which is jointly organised by the Francke Foundations and the Halle Puppet Theatre.

Under the title »Total Real. The discovery of visualisation« (23 March - 2 February 2025), the exhibition presents learning with all the senses using models, experiments and manual skills in Francke's new type of school, the Realschule. The curatorial team led by Tom Gärtig looks at the present from a historical perspective and asks how nature and technology can be vividly conveyed today with the support of smart devices and new virtual worlds.

All information on the events in the annual programme can be found in our annual magazine (only in German):

Annual magazine »Spielraum« - The annual programme at a glance:
64 pages with
> Interviews (Prof. Dr Gerald Hüther, neurobiologist and learning researcher),
> Reports (Maria Montessori children's centre),
> Background information (Christoph Semler and the first secondary school in Germany),
> Dates and current news
Now available free of charge at the information centre in the Francke`s Home  (Tue - Sun,
10 a.m. - 5 p.m.)