Deutsches Museum
Masterpieces of Science & Technology
The name of the Deutsches Museum in Munich doesn’t really give away what it’s all about, but if you come to think of it, the German Museum must be about technology, and so it is. In fact, it’s the largest technological museum of its kind in the world. Located on an island in the Isar river, the museum opened one hundred years ago, and today it features an exhibition space of some 45,000 m². The museum is currently undergoing an extensive modernization, a Jahrhundertprojekt to be completed in 2028, which means that not all areas are accessible at present, but there is still more than enough to be seen — more than can be managed in one day. In addition, there are two branch museums that are definitely worth a visit: the Verkehrszentrum, dedicated to urban transport, travel & mobility, and Flugwerft Schleißheim, slightly north of Munich, which is about the history of aviation.
The museum is organized in various permanent exhibitions that explore the fields of science & technology, ranging from aviation and chemistry to robotics and health. Among the exhibits you’ll find a harpsichord from Venice from 1561, an ivory sundial from 1652, Otto von Guericke’s Magdeburg hemispheres, a microscope by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Wolfgang von Kempelen’s speaking machine, a Benz Patent-Motorwagen № 1, the first Diesel engine, Marie & Pierre Curie’s apparatus for measuring radioactivity, a Junkers F 13 aircraft, technical equipment used for the discovery of nuclear fission, an Enigma M4 cipher machine, Konrad Zuse’s Z4 computer, and a
Reader Comments
Margriet
The ultimate companion to Wolfgang von Kempelen’s speaking machine is his book Mechanismus der menschlichen Sprache (1791). In this book, Kempelen explores the origin of speech, its sounds, and the human speech organs. In the chapter about the speaking machine he describes his research & the various devices he built, offering a detailed description of his latest attempt, including numerous scale drawings.
Hugo
Besides the Junkers F 13, which was the world’s first all-metal passenger aircraft, there’s also a Junkers Ju 52 on display, one of the most famous aeroplanes ever built. Nicknamed Tante Ju, i.e. ‘Auntie Ju’, this model quickly became the de facto standard in commercial aviation in the 1930s because of its exceptional reliability.
Kurt
Only a handful of Junkers F 13 aircraft have survived. The one in Munich was built in 1928 and then sold to Afghanistan, returning to Germany in 1969, a year after it was found in a scrapyard in Kabul, missing its wings & empennage. The plane was restored in the 1970s, with a four-year older F 13 serving as a historical model, so that it now looks as if it had been in use with the joint German-Russian airline Deruluft instead of in Afghanistan.
Stefan
One of the coolest exhibits in the printing technology collection is a Linotype hot-metal typesetter from 1964. Invented in 1884, this machine casts entire lines of metal type for one-time use, which was a significant improvement over the previous industry standard of setting type by hand, letter by letter. Sadly, it’s on display in a showcase, and you cannot see it live in action.