WingNews logo WingNews
top | item 45472678

The Buchstabenmuseum Berlin is closing

204 points| t-vi | 4 months ago |buchstabenmuseum.de

69 comments

order

weinzierl|4 months ago

Sad to hear.

Berlin is a modern typography hub, the influence Spiekermann has in the DACH region and maybe even beyond is hard to overestimate.

Apart from that if you come to Berlin and you are the kind of person that would have liked the Buchstabenmuseum you should try to get an opportunity to visit the crashed space station.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-base

tethys|4 months ago

As for why they are closing:

> Fixed costs and a lack of financial support are forcing us to take this step. In addition, the general cultural situation in Berlin is very precarious. It was a very difficult decision for us.

Via Deepl, original here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DLuAW5DIANV/

vishnugupta|4 months ago

> cultural situation in Berlin is very precarious

Can someone please elaborate this for someone who is absolutely clueless about Berlin?

ajkjk|4 months ago

What cultural situation are they referring to?

pluc|4 months ago

Berlin is an open air museum for typography

MomsAVoxell|4 months ago

As is Vienna. Definitely a typographers dream.

hentrep|4 months ago

This is a bummer - headed to Berlin for the first time in a few weeks and hoped to visit. Any recommendations for similarly geek-oriented side trips in Berlin?

nanoxide|4 months ago

Technikmuseum [0] has many different technology-related exhibitions. And the Spectrum (separate building) has a lot of physics- and science experiments you can actively try out. Loved it as a kid.

[0] https://technikmuseum.berlin/en/

mgirkins|4 months ago

Thank you for posting this! I just spent a very enjoyable hour there and I’m sad others won’t be able to do the same in future.

They appear to work with many institutions in a consultancy capacity so I hope that this will still continue in future even though the museum itself has to close.

mnot|4 months ago

Oh no! We were just there a couple of months ago. I hope they find a good home for their collection.

not--felix|4 months ago

It's sad. I did not know this exists, where do people find locations like this?

SZJX|4 months ago

Good that I saw this post on its last day of opening. Gonna pay a visit today. Typography is fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

kcaseg|4 months ago

Probably the money gambled away on slop AI startups in a single week could sustain thousands of museums like this for decades

laughing_man|4 months ago

"Gambled away" is an unfair characterization. People will get rich off of AI, too. We just don't know who yet.

Nobody is going to make money on museums. As such, you either provide for them through tax dollars or you convince people to donate.

CrzyLngPwd|4 months ago

Or the money they sent to Ukraine.

aetherson|4 months ago

Money spent on startups isn't charity, you do it in the expectation of (in aggregate) profit -- so it's not rivalrous with charities. People who might support museums earn money on investments that they can then use for charities.

If you believe that you are better at picking winners (slop startups vs non-slop startups) than the rest of the investment world, then that's a valuable skill that you could use to earn a lot of money that you could then use to support museums if you choose.

roschdal|4 months ago

[deleted]

flohofwoe|4 months ago

You could just have posted a Wikipedia link instead of AI slop ;)