Werkbundarchiv – museum of things, Design museum in Kreuzberg, Germany.
The Werkbundarchiv is a design museum in Berlin-Kreuzberg that focuses on the history of everyday products and industrial manufacture. The building holds thousands of items from the 20th century including furniture, appliances, packaging, and household goods that show how design shapes daily life.
The Deutscher Werkbund was founded in 1907 by artists, industrialists and cultural politicians seeking to reform design and living conditions against the alienation of mass production. The Werkbundarchiv itself was founded in 1973 and is run by a non-profit association. It moved from the Oranienstraße workshop building, closed in November 2023, to Leipziger Straße 54, opened on 23 May 2024.
The name "Museum der Dinge" takes "Ding" literally: mainly movable everyday objects and product-design pieces that shape people's lives. The collection sets Werkbund-designed products beside mass-produced goods, one-off craft pieces beside anonymous design, purist objects beside kitsch, and brand goods beside no-name products.
The museum left its Oranienstraße workshop building in November 2023 and reopened on 23 May 2024 at Leipziger Straße 54. Plan your visit around the new address rather than the old Kreuzberg location, and check the current opening times before setting out.
A shop-window mannequin from around 1900 in the collection was photographed for the cover of the album Lulu by Lou Reed and Metallica. The figure is an example of the anonymous, mass-produced objects the museum collects alongside designer pieces.
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