Spectrum at the German Technical Museum, Berlin

Spectrum is a relatively recent, hands-on venue that was added to the German Technical Museum. It is housed in an old, former railroad administration building and has several floors of about 20 small rooms with about 250 interactive exhibits. The rooms are organized by subject (electricity, optics, astronomy, physics, etc.), and essentially all of the exhibits were built at the museum. Most are mounted on relatively simple wood benches or frames and the mechanical parts were robust and had just enough of a homebrew flavor to look experimental. I was reminded of the early Exploratorium aesthetic, where the exhibits were designed so that visitors felt as if they were in a laboratory environment.

Because of the large number of exhibits and the small rooms, many of the exhibits were placed next to each other and against the walls. This meant that visitors could not easily congregate around them easily in family groups; visitors often circulated by moving along the rows of exhibits, rather than lingering and discussing what they were seeing and doing.

An interesting challenge is that the floor staff at Spectrum are provided by an outside agency and rotate between this center, the main museum, and other sites. Training is difficult because of the large number and rapid rotation of staff provided, and the museum itself has relatively little control over floor staff. At one point, while experimenting with an exhibit on spinning motion, I discovered that, depending on how I rotated a crank, I could produce several distinct modes of motion. At the point where I had activated a second mode (which not in the signage), a guide came by and corrected me, demonstrating how to crank the exhibit to produce the motion shown in the label.

The parent museum has plans to build a large, dramatic interactive science center called “Technoversum,” which will be thematically arranged (energy, communications, transportation, etc.) and will likely replace the somewhat funky “Spectrum.” Significant funds and other support must be raised, and because the city of Berlin currently has a large outstanding debt and other issues, a timetable for the project has not yet been possible. Fortunately, the museum has site control and can proceed with broad planning without concern over the timing or acquisition of the necessary land. As in most of the museums I have visited so far, I was impressed overall with the enthusiasm of the staff I met and their dedication to science and education.