It just had to be. When Markus Söder opens a museum whose very first exhibition is called “Science” and “Fiction”, one in which futuristic technologies are negotiated, the use of robots, it was obvious that at some point he would wield a lightsaber. Surrounded by disguised cyber beings and ministers, the Star Trek fan and prime minister grinned into the cameras on Friday, cut a red ribbon with his sword and probably half of Nuremberg is happy that it is now official with this future museum. Because so far, given the high rental price that the Free State pays for it, it was more of an excitement than a place of “charisma”, as is said from now on in the television cameras.
Politics, science and the press are invited on Friday morning, and from Saturday onwards, anyone interested can enter the Deutsches Museum Nürnberg. It is an offshoot of the house of the same name in Munich, and that sounds a bit like a small branch, but it turns out to be much more – and it is only the fourth in the world that is explicitly dedicated to the future. The future museums of Berlin, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro therefore also send video greetings to Franconia, with Tokyo running a very lively robot towards the camera and museum people from Berlin cheering and waving.
The architect Volker Staab also comes from Berlin, who designed the Augustinerhof and museum here on the Pegnitz, in the middle of the old town. It is not the first time the Berliner has worked in the Franconian metropolis. He also designed the New Museum for Contemporary Art with its imposing glass facade.
The inside of the Deutsches Museum Nürnberg is just as modern as it is there, with lots of exposed concrete. (The large, staggered, peculiar brown windows, however, do not initially suggest the bright future from the outside). Inside, long, smooth concrete walls that lead into long edges, here and there strips of light, everything is super modern. Nice contrast to the outside: the view through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows is spectacular on the old half-timbered houses on the Pegnitz and present-day Nuremberg, while inside everything revolves around the future.
Söder can quickly be shown the three floors, expressly thanks real estate manager Gerd Schmelzer, with whom the Free State has concluded the rental agreement, and says with raised eyebrows that everything “happened according to the law”. The opposition sees it differently, it is said that paying 2.5 million euros annually for 25 years is disproportionate. An audit is in progress at the Supreme Audit Office. Söder is annoyed. On the day of the opening you can just let it go and be happy. And disappears for an appointment with Armin Laschet, who is in town.
Robots that pull weld seams, a huge globe and space junk around it
In any case, in the museum one is visibly happy that things are finally getting started and the content is being talked about with a few months of corona-related delay. The focus here is on lots of gimmicks and measuring devices in five thematic areas that measure the size of guests without being asked, but above all it is about how technologies are changing the human world. For example at the workplace, because robotic arms take over the task of drawing the finest weld seams. Thought a little bigger, it’s about modern mobility to stop climate change. More broadly, how humans move in space, for example in the direction of Mars. A huge globe hangs from the ceiling, with space debris around it. That is another topic, responsibility in matters of space travel.
The stations offer little text, but you can touch a lot more. Children and young people are also explicitly addressed here. The listeners you hold to your ear only seem a bit premodern, while in other museums your own smartphone has long been used for this.
A globe in the “System Earth” area of the Deutsches Museum in Nuremberg.
(Photo: dpa)
Everything is optically designed. Exhibits that stand for pure science fiction, such as a cyborg, are dark gray. White is the reality, state of the art. Everything in between is light gray that is slumbering in the minds of scientists and technology geeks, some of which has been tried and tested, but has not yet found its way into society. Take the air taxi. Often ridiculed, there is now such a huge device as a prototype in Nuremberg. More precisely: It is an electric car and a drone, there are both, hence the category white. To fly, the drone docks to the car. And that is exactly the point – a lot of what is technically possible has by no means been negotiated socially. Who owns the airspace, who guarantees safety when people fly from A to B?
That’s the strong part of the museum. It raises moral, social questions. Keyword: designer baby on the computer. Or: sex and loneliness. A life-size, very human-looking sex robot sits in a showcase in Nuremberg. The first brothels with such machines already exist, some are talking about the end of the exploitation of sex work. On the other hand, the exhibition asks: Do we want to share things as intimate as sex with a machine? Or the cyborg: are you one if you have a pacemaker?
In Nuremberg, the museum ranks between the Germanisches Nationalmuseum and Neues Museum and is, without a doubt, on an international level. You don’t have to be a technology freak or a trained physicist to visit. And word of that will surely get around quickly to the international audience.