museum der dinge

July 1, 2022. Berlin, Museum der Dinge

Some may argue but I really appreciate the straight-forwardness of Germans, there’s no going around the bush and here it’s not different at the Museum der Dinge, or Museum of things. It’s a small museum located in Kreuzberg, Berlin displaying objects of mass production and industrial manufacturing in the 19th and 20th century in Germany.

One particular object stuck out to me, a cabinet, or Werkbund boxes - made of clear frame that opens like a suitcase to different kinds of objects. These cabinets were sponsored by the Werkbund with their products such as kitchen, household gadgets, and more and they were loaned to schools. Interesting right? It was to educate the future consumers to what “good” design and materials is.

Today we most anything we buy breaks in a year or two. But when I visit flea markets around Germany you always see vinyl record players and blending machines made during the DDR and they still work. Today, as consumers, we want choices and many of them, quality over quality. But there are consequences of our materialistic greed; lands of textile wastes and plastics in oceans. Also these boxes are also biased, children who grow up seeing distinguished brands may highly likely purchase these. But evermore, it is interesting to see how such matters were acted upon and placed in public education and perhaps we need to question what to educate children and more importantly, how?