Dirk Syndram will give a Brown Bag Lunch presentation on Monday, March 2, at 12:15 pm. His talk it entitled “The Dresden Residence-Castle: Sixteen Years of Growth of a New Museum.”

In 1994 the New Green Vault opened as the first part of the Dresden Castle, as it began its transformation from a ruin of World War II into a splendid modern museum featuring princely treasures. This milestone was followed in 2006 with the opening of the Historic Green Vault, then the Turkish Chamber in 2010, the Hall of Giants in 2013, which housed the most important arms and armor of the Rüstkammer, and the Renaissance Wing in 2017. The final stage of this historic reconstruction opened in 2019. The lecture will present plans for a time machine that will allow visitors to spend hours in the splendor of the past.

Dirk Syndram is the Director of the Green Vault of the Dresden State Art Collections—an appointment he has held since 1993. He is in charge of attending to the precious inventory of Baroque treasure, and has coordinated its reinstallation in the restored museum. He is also the Director of the Armory and served as Deputy Director General of the Dresden State Art Collections from 1998 until 2002. He studied art history, Egyptology, and classical archaeology at the University of Hamburg, and received his doctorate in 1985, having written his thesis on the use of Egyptian imagery in European classicism before 1800. In 2003 he was appointed honorary professor of the Technical University of Dresden. Syndram’s many publications include Prunkstücke des Grünen Gewölbes zu Dresden (Munich/Berlin, 1994), Die Schatzkammer Augusts des Starken. Von der Pretiosensammlung zum Grünen Gewölbe (Leipzig, 1999), and Renaissance and Baroque Treasury Art. The Green Vauilt in Dresden (Munich/Berlin, 2004).