Draaiorgelmuseum

About

Barrel Organ Museum Haarlem (Dutch: Draaiorgelmuseum Haarlem) is a museum in Haarlem in the Netherlands. Next to the presentation of a variety of barrel organs, accessory objects and documentation material, there is a ballroom where music of the organs is often played. The museum was opened in 1969 by the foundation Het Kunkels Orgel. Since 2014 it has been at its current location within a business park at the Küppersweg.

History: The museum's origin begins in 1958 when a former dancehall organ made by Charles Marenghi & Cie in Paris in 1909 and later restored around 1930 by Carl Frei of Breda was purchased by a group or organ enthusiasts in Haarlem. This organ is known as the Kunkels Organ as it was restored by Frei for Kunkels, a fairground operator from Roermond. The goal in 1958 was the preservation of the organ for the future, for which the foundation Het Kunkels Orgel was brought to existence in 1962. In the course of ten years the organ was restored. At the opening in 1969 it became the central piece of the barrel organ museum. The first establishment was in a former factory building. In the following decades the collection was complemented with own and borrowed barrel organs...