Berlin’s greatest typographic institution is probably the Buchstabenmuseum (The Letter Museum). Similar to the Neon Museum in Las Vegas, this establishment collects, preserves, and educates on the dying art of dimensional typography – mostly in the form of shop signs. Visitors can marvel at the beautiful, decaying letters and get to see up close just how they were made and work.

When I first moved to Berlin some 4 years ago I found the museum in a tiny little space; crammed full of letters, they had extremely limited, sporadic opening hours. Roughly two years ago they moved to their current location inside a mall-like space directly at Alexanderplatz. While here, they expanded the collection and made it even more educational and interactive. The layout and concept of the space is quite wonderful with dramatic lighting and interesting arrangements and groupings of letters.

Until today, I had not yet posted images from the redesigned museum, but now I must – especially because of two important pieces of news. So pay attention:

1— Tomorrow night (March 16th) will be a long night at the museum. The fun starts at 17:00 with Pecha Kucha! It will feature some great names in Berlin’s ecclectic type crowd: Christine Campe // Christine Voshage // Hildrun Dreyer // Julia Sysmäläinen // Lara Schilling // Lucas de Groot // Marcus Hahn // Raban Ruddigkeit // Sascha Grewe // Sonja Keller // Sonja Knecht.

But, if you can’t make it to the talks, you can also stop by later in the evening. Tomorrow is the Lange Nacht der Museen (long night of museums) in Berlin. Most of the city’s museums will stay open late (till 2am), and you can get into all of them with just one ticket. I’d suggest starting with Pecha Kucha, then moving on to some other nice places (the Martin-Gropius-Bau is always great).

Go!

2— The museum will be closing at the end of the month! So, you really should get to see it one last time before they are gone! That sounds overly dramatic I hope – don’t fear, they will reopen in a new location nearby soonish. Still, it would be good to see them here before it’s too late.

The Pecha Kucha night would be a good excuse to visit wouldn’t it?

If you don’t go tomorrow night, the museum is normally open Thu–Sat from 1–3pm. You have till March 30th to stop by.