Davos equal to WEF, World Economic Forum, which since 1971 has brought together the greats of politics and economics. Davos equals sport, skiing and hockey but not only. Davos with extraordinary nature between lakes, mountains, deep valleys. Davos equals Kirchner museum, built on the fantastic collection of over 1500 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and textile works and 160 sketchbooks by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), as well as more than 1500 photographs, historical documents and a vast library on Expressionism. If we add that Davos recalls Thomas Mann, the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature, who wrote and set one of his most famous books there, The enchanted mountain, we understand how the broad and robust roots of this world famous locality sink in the culture. The extensive exhibition is dedicated to these roots, which until 30 October sees four museums as protagonists, in collaboration with the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, the largest museum of cultural history in the German-speaking world that has been involved in Davos for years. Because perhaps no place is more suitable than the locality of Graubünden to understand the yearnings, fears and threats of Europe shaken by oppositions and crises that will lead to two world wars. In those decades in Davos the struggle for existence was translated into art and literature, while trying to heal the then incurable tuberculosis and, at the same time, set up a dialogue of peace between nations. A new model of life was born in which the needs of the soul and body could find nourishment between culture, landscape, harmony with nature and the search for a new spirituality.
In detail, the Kirchner Museum focuses on art and literature with a refined selection of works by Kirchner and Philipp Bauknecht which gives an idea of life in Davos from 1860 to 1940 that is romantic and realistic at the same time. A large number of postcards, tourist posters and photographs incorporate the works of art in their historical context: from peasant-mountain people to sporting activities, from architecture to immersion in traditional life models up to new discoveries between medicine and tourism. To better situate themselves in that magical time, visitors can relax on original thermal deckchairs and listen to texts by Thomas Mann, Else Lasker-Schüler and Beatrice Harraden.
The winter sports museum tells the story of the pioneers of sport, from the history of bobsleigh and sledding to skating, skiing and of course ice hockey. The Museum of Medicine takes its cue from Thomas Mann's stories to document the set of initiatives and discoveries to tackle not only one of the most insidious diseases but also that living sickness that ran through the society of the time. Here is documented the close collaboration between the doctor Alexander Spengler, who recognized the importance of the high mountain climate for the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis and promoted Davos as a health resort, and Willem Jan Holsboer, a Dutch-born entrepreneur with whom in 1868 he created the first sanatorium. To support the rapid development of this medical tourism industry, Holsboer started the Landquart-Davos railway in 1888, now part of the Rhaetian Railway. The local history museum exhibits everyday objects of this very effective collaboration between medicine and entrepreneurship as well as a model of the "Berghof" sanatorium and a series of projects largely carried out that consolidated the European fame of Davos, the nerve center of the scientific, sports and European cultural. All in a tour of art, literature and history where Kirchner's paintings and Thomas Mann's novels stand out against the backdrop of a vitalistic Davos.
