The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is happy about a record number of visitors in 2023. Never since these numbers were recorded have there been more than 882,388 visitors who were enthusiastic about nature on site or who took part in an open dialogue about the future of our planet in numerous educational and event formats. Together with 771,820 podcast streams, more than 1.65 million people took advantage of the museum's offerings in 2023.
"The record shows society's immense interest in the topic of nature and our approach to it as a democratic society," says Johannes Vogel, Director General. "Nothing less than our very existence as humanity is at stake in the biodiversity and climate crises, and people are beginning to understand this more and more."
The great interest in learning more about life on our earth and the research into it at the museum is also underlined by the 771,820 podcast streams in 2023: The podcast "Beats & Bones", which was awarded the German Audio Book Prize, entered its seventh season, as well as "Süßes oder Saurier", the knowledge podcast for children.
From research into the emergence of new species to the development of insect collections to the modeling of meteorite impacts on Earth: the YouTube series "Museum Evolution" also provides insights into processes behind the scenes at the research museum, which is currently implementing its Future Plan generously supported by the federal government and the state of Berlin.
The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is currently reaching its limits with this number of visitors. The implementation of the Future Plan will remedy this. "With the Future Plan, we are finally in a position to renovate the entire building in order to develop into an open and integrated research museum that can welcome more than a million visitors per year," said Stephan Junker, Managing Director.
In the future, visitors can expect an airy building in which they can orientate themselves better, with an inclusive entrance and new tours through a larger exhibition. The winning design resulting from the 2023 architectural competition gives the museum a new center. A place of welcome is being created in the current dinosaur hall. The currently unused second courtyard behind it will be covered and become the central exhibition hall, where the large dinosaur skeletons can be displayed. In many places there will be new insights into the collection as well as into its scientific and other uses.
From spring 2024, visitors can find out about the future plan and the planned construction processes in an intervention in the exhibition.