Come experience the fascination of sea travel at the Deutsches Technikmuseum’s exhibition “Lifeworld Ship.” You’ll be amazed at the close relationship between people and boats, between cultural developments and the history of seafaring, and by humankind’s desire to literally expand its horizons.
Please note: Parts of the exhibition Shipping (New Building: ground floor + 1st floor) are closed until further notice due to reconstruction work.
Visitors to the Shipping exhibition are welcomed by Captain Nemo on an imaginary set of his submarine, the Nautilus. The mariner from Jules Verne’s novel 20,000 Leagues under the Sea talks about the nature of water, the oceans, and dangers at sea. And he tells myths – about sea monsters and figureheads, the decorative sculptures at the prows of ships. Many sailors believed the soul of the ship resided in the figurehead. Any damage it sustained was considered a bad omen.
What it was like to live on board a ship is reflected in countless stories, myths, symbols, and aphorisms dealing with the interaction between people, boats, and the sea. More than 1,100 objects, dived into 30 thematic exhibits and spread across 6,500 square meters of exhibition space on three levels, provide insight into the history of deep-sea and inland navigation. This is one of the world’s largest exhibitions devoted to ships and boats.
The heart of the exhibition is devoted to deep-sea navigation. It starts with the chronologically structured exhibit “Ships and History.” Fifty-two model ships (scale 1:50) show developments in size and shape over the last 10,000 years – from the leather boat to the aircraft carrier. Other exhibits focus on a wide variety of themes relating to deep-sea ships. Five alone are devoted to the history of seafaring and different types of navigation: from rudimentary navigation devices to modern GPS.
Without advances in navigation devices, the voyages of discovery undertaken by Portugal and Spain around the year 1500 would not have been possible. These voyages in turn changed navigation techniques and ship design, gave way to a new conception of the world, and established a new balance of power on the high seas. The exhibition is rounded out with sections on sea rescue, whaling, and the production of sails and rigging.
For thousands of years, shipbuilding and its many challenges remained the province of purely experiential knowledge. Only in the 18th century did mathematics start playing a role in ship design. Visitors to the exhibition will discover what forces act upon the hull and how ships move through the water. They can even try their hand at setting a sail and tying nautical knots.
The ground floor begins with an exhibit on “Water Sports in and around Berlin” featuring many original sailboats, rowboats, and motorboats. After that comes “Inland Navigation between the Elbe and Oder.” Shipping on the many waterways around Berlin provided an indispensable foundation for the city’s development, with so-called Kaffe barges transporting large quantities of building materials from outlying areas. Locks and boat lifts made it possible for boats to overcome differences in elevation both small and large, and thus to smoothly continue their journey on the network of rivers and canals. Historic models are also on display that once belonged to the Institute and Museum of Oceanography and the Transport and Civil Engineering Museum (both now defunct).
Auf seinen Reisen entdeckte Thomas Cook viele neue Pflanzen und Tiere, die in Zeichnungen dokumentiert wurden. Für seine Reisen wurde die britische ENDEAUVOUR von 1764 zu einem Forschungsschiff umgebaut.
SDTB / V. Kreidler
An Hands-on-Stationen können Besucherinnen und Besucher ihr Wissen auf die Probe stellen. Die Navigation durch die Elbmündung gelingt nur, wenn richtig gesteuert wird.
SDTB / C. Kirchner
52 Schiffsmodelle aus fünf Jahrhunderten erzählen auf einer Zeitachse von der Entdeckung fremder Kontinente und dem Einfluss der Seefahrt auf Kultur und Handel.
SDTB / H. Hattendorf
Die prachtvollen Schnitzereien der schwedischen VASA von 1628 zeigen, dass Schiffe auch als Repräsentationsobjekte und Ausdruck von Macht dienten.
SDTB / C. Kirchner
Die große rote Schiffsschraube der JEAN COUSIN ragt aus dem Maschinenraum mit Antriebsmaschine, Nebenaggregaten und Dampfkessel hinaus.
SDTB / Müller
Das Ein-Mann-U-Boot Biber von 1944 wurde entwickelt, um vor Anker liegende Schiffe anzugreifen. Seine technischen Mängel und die unzureichende Ausbildung der jungen Fahrer trieben sechzig bis siebzig Prozent von ihnen in den Tod.
SDTB / C. Kirchner
The king of Denmark gave Alexander von Humboldt this precision timepiece in 1830. For a while it was kept in the Berlin observatory, as Humboldt noted on the top of its mahogany box. Alexander von Humboldt made a journey to the Americas in 1799, thus ushering in a new era of research voyages using state-of-the-art scientific instruments.
Johann Heinrich Kessels, 1828
As the saying goes, “Barges built Berlin.” Berlin owes its development to the many surrounding waterways, on which large quantities of building materials were shipped to the city. This Kaffe barge, salvaged from the Havel River, dates to about 1840. It was loaded with roof tiles when it sank. It is the largest object in the exhibition.
ca. 1840
A (sailing) corvette was a three-masted, full-rigged warship smaller than a frigate. The Glattdeckskorvette CREOLE had only small structures at the bow and stern instead of a forecastle and poop deck. These fast ships were mostly used for reconnaissance. The model of the CREOLE is built to a scale of 1:50.
Michael Keyser, 2003
Locks, inclined planes, and boat lifts make it possible for boats to overcome differences in elevation between sections of a canal. At the boat lift in Niederfinow, a 36-meter elevation difference is overcome in five minutes. This brass model (scale 1:50) will show you how it functions. It took 20 years of work at the museum, most of it done by volunteers, to finish the model of the Niederfinow Boat Lift.
Rudolph, Lambrecht, Masella, Tannenberg, 2014
