Oh my god Becky, seriously the Museum of Things (Museum der Dinge) is like totally the most raddest place in Berlin. If you thought the DDR Museum had some cool old stuff, then you will be blown away by all the junk at this place. It is a cross between a natural history museum, the Smithsonian, your grandma’s house, a garage sale, and a dump. It has an extensive collection of “things” from the 1800s through today – roughly sorted chronologically and also a bit categorically.
Its stockpile of ephemeral, everyday objects is amazing. Typoholics will find hours of pleasure simply staring at all the old logos and packaging. I ended up taking about 150 photos while managing to convince my friends I am nuts because of how overly excited I was.
For those of you who are maybe not impressed with *just* nice old type and objects, the museum has more attractions. There are also some big, powerful, loud, Mythbusteresque machines that smash, chop, stomp, and roll/crush/flatten. Visitors are invited to use the hydraulic beasts to annihilate some miscellaneous bric-a-brac. Mechanical thumps, shattering, screaming, and laughing can be heard echoing throughout the museum.
It is a great place. Plus there is a gift shop with some nice designer objects and some other old crap you can buy too!