MUNICH.- On May 21, 1925 Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum was founded. Exactly 100 years later to the day, Die Neue Sammlung presents itself with an exhibition of 100 objects. The selection for the 100th anniversary illustrates the richness and diversity of its collection. With over 120,000 international objects covering 20 different areas, Die Neue Sammlung is considered the world’s largest design museum.

The selection presents not only iconic works and evidence of collection’s history but also many unknown treasures that have never before gone on display at Pinakothek der Moderne. The presentation does not follow the customary chronology but focuses instead on the time when the museum acquired the respective object. It paints a new picture of the institution’s collection history.

Since its foundation in 1925, Die Neue Sammlung has been the first state design museum in Germany to collect contemporary. It purchases objects at international fairs, from training institutions – at the time from the Bauhaus and Kunstgewerbeschule Burg Giebichenstein – or straight from the designer. The collection also benefits specifically from donations, bequeathals of estates, and acquisitions from the art trade.

In the early days, the focus was on mass-produced and artisanal objects made from materials such as glass, ceramics, metal, furniture, textiles, wickerwork pieces, as well as to packaging, posters, and books. After 1945, against the backdrop of a prospering West German economy, technical appliances formed a key strand in collecting activities. Not until the 1960s were Art Nouveau objects rediscovered, such as the Parisian Metro station design by Hector Guimard. With their first museums’s exhibition of images by Bernd and Hilla Becher in 1967, Die Neue Sammlung started collecting photographs.

In the 1980s, the collection was expanded to also feature computer and vehicle design, sports equipment, load-bearing architecture and systems, and corporate design.

Given the predominant focus hitherto on the “Good Form”, with its substantive emphasis on the ideals of the German Werkbund, not until the 1990s did Die Neue Sammlung on-board the revolutionary anti-design of Alchimia and Memphis. Jewelry has been given a new thrust with an emphasis on studio jewelry. With German unification, East German design came into focus.

Design work from outside Europe is strongly represented by works from the United States and Japan, and over the last 20 years interest has also shifted to other cultural areas.

Over the last decade, topics such as AI, robotics, sustainability, social design, and inclusion have all come into focus.

COLLECTION ONLINE

To mark this anniversary year, Die Neue Sammlung is also presenting part of its collection digitally for the first time. More than 1,000 objects can be explored online – including highlights from the collection – thanks to funding from the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts’ ‘kultur.digital.strategie’ programme. The Collection Online is linked to the museum’s freely accessible website. Apart from object descriptions, images from different perspectives, 3D views and sounds related to individual items are available, as well as information in German, simple German, English, ‘easy-to-read’ language and the German sign language. The X-D-E-P-O-T and Sound of Design apps will be replaced by corresponding features in the Collection Online and will be given a new look. As such, visitors will not only be able to access the Collection Online at home but also in the exhibition rooms.

On the basis of this, an accompanying digital exhibition, created in cooperation with the Deutsches Museum, is to be held this summer: objects from the two museums, both of which are celebrating their 100th anniversaries this year, will be presented side by side.

The Collection Online is intended to grow steadily and has been evolved as part of the ‘An Inclusive Design Experience’ project. With this project, Die Neue Sammlung has been working on establishing an accessible and digital presence since 2022. Recently, visitors have been welcomed at the entrance to the Design Collection in German sign language: the museum signer Kilian Knörzer appears on a life-size screen in a video loop. With all these innovations, the museum is moving closer towards its goal of making good design accessible to everyone – a guiding principle that the museum has followed since it was founded.