Deutsches Museum

The Deutsches Museum has filled its own island in the Isar since Oskar von Miller founded it in 1903 - one of the largest science and technology museums on earth, and still the most physical of them. Its legend rests on immersion: the high-voltage hall stages genuine lightning around a Faraday cage with a keeper sitting calmly inside, and the halls hold first-rank originals - the U1 submarine of 1906, pioneering aircraft, engines, instruments and laboratory benches where modern science happened. A sweeping modernisation reopened nineteen exhibitions in 2022, from aviation to musical instruments, while the live demonstrations that generations of Munich schoolchildren remember carry on to timetable. It is less a museum than a city of machines - and like a city, it cannot be finished in a day.

History

The museum was founded on 28 June 1903 at a meeting of the Association of German Engineers, on the initiative of Oskar von Miller, who had gathered a small group of supporters a few months before; that June Prince Ludwig became its patron and the city of Munich gave Coal Island in the Isar as its site. Temporary exhibitions opened at the National Museum on 12 November 1906, and the foundation stone of the permanent building was laid on November 13; after a delay of almost ten years, von Miller opened the new museum on his 70th birthday, 2 May 1925 (Wikipedia, Deutsches Museum).

What to look for

• The musical instruments hall - centuries of keyboards, strings and synthesizers, freshly redisplayed.
• The high-voltage show - staged lightning crackling around a Faraday cage.
• The aviation halls - pioneer aircraft from fabric wings to jets.
• The U1 submarine - the 1906 boat parked among the marine exhibits.

When to go

Year-round and ideal in bad weather - which means school holidays and wet weekends are the crush. Weekday mornings are calmest; check the demonstration timetable on arrival and plan around it.

What to expect

It is vast - pick three or four sections and accept defeat on the rest. Parts remain closed as the long renovation continues - including the famous walk-through mine, shut until around 2028 - and the beloved demonstrations run in German first with English summaries. Kids tend to need dragging out; adults too.

Nearby

The Isar embankments, Marienplatz and the old town, and the Ludwigsbrucke riverside.

Key facts