Page - 83 - in Nikola Tesla and the Graz Tech

83 (since 1947), Trautenfels Castle (since 1952), parts of Stainz Castle (since 1966) and Palais Attems (from 1997 to 2006), which housed the photographic and sound archive established in 1960. Only one of these buildings was built for its use as a museum – the one at Neutorgasse 45. On the other hand, with the Kunsthaus in 2003, as Graz was the Europe- an capital of culture, a building was added that has already been attracting worldwide attention. In 1913, on the basis of a special folklore exhibition shown in the museum building at Neutorgasse 45, the provincial committee decided on a plan to es- tablish a museum for folklore. The initiative for this came from Viktor von Ger- amb, the then secretary of the board of trustees, who was also commissioned to set up and design this collection. Already in his contribution to the commemorative publication on the cente- nary of the Joanneum, von Geramb explained the importance of Archduke Jo- hann for Styrian folklore. He found the justification for the creation of this new collection at the Joanneum in the founding statutes of the institute, in which the Archduke had also named the field of ‘statistics’ among the subjects the institute was to illustrate. According to Johann, statistics as a descriptive sci- ence also had to include ‘the traditional costumes, folk festivals and domestic life’ of Inner Austria. Thus Geramb was able to derive from the statutes of the Joanneum the justification for his extension by a subject which had not been developed as an independent discipline at the time the Joanneum was founded. The establishment of the Folk Life Museum at the Joanneum had the immediate consequence that folklore could establish itself as a scientific discipline and that a chair for folklore studies (Ethnology) was established at the University of Graz as a university novelty. Geramb’s initiative ultimately led to the later expansion of the folklore depart- ment at the Joanneum through the takeover of the Landscape Museum in Trautenfels Castle in 1952 and the establishment of a permanent branch of the Folk Life Museum in Stainz Castle following the 1966 provincial exhibition ‘The Styrian Farmer’. The founding of a museum for biotechnology and hunting at the Joanneum in 1941 and its realisation in 1949 can also be seen from this perspective. The term biotechnology was soon no longer in use, but today it seems very modern again.