Future plan
The Museum Evolution
The museum’s development into the 21st century
Background
The diversity of life and our responsibility
The Earth supports an impressive abundance of life. For billions of years, countless species, ecosystems and interactions have evolved, making human life possible – from clean water to the air we breathe. We all bear responsibility for ensuring that this interdependence can continue.
Yet the world is currently facing a multitude of crises. These include accelerating species extinction, the climate crisis and dwindling trust in democracy.
The role of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin
The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is exceptionally well-positioned, both in terms of content and scientific expertise, to make a significant contribution to tackling these three crises. For a long time, however, the funds were lacking to enable the museum to realise this potential to the fullest. Specifically, the financial resources were lacking to
- renovate and modernise the ageing building, thereby creating contemporary working conditions, future-proof accommodation for the collection and the transfer of knowledge;
- to develop the collection in a forward-looking manner, secure it for the long term and realise its full potential;
- replace the exhibitions, some of which were decades old, with new and innovative formats, and develop and introduce new forms of knowledge dissemination and dialogue with society.
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Project manager and construction engineer Lucia Pellici with a building plan in a historic exhibition hall featuring brick walls, bricked-up windows and a temporary emergency roof.
Photo: Pablo Castagnola
A historic exhibition hall in the museum building which – now renovated – is still used on a temporary and provisional basis to house items from the collection.
Photo: Carola Radke
Courtyard in front of the museum’s north wing: As part of the museum’s development, we are extending the existing, unrenovated section of the building with a modern new wing housing laboratories and workspaces.
Photo: Carola Radke
The blueprint for the future as a roadmap for the museum’s evolution
In the 2010s, the museum therefore developed a highly ambitious plan: the Future Plan. In 2018, it succeeded in securing funding for this from the German Bundestag and the State of Berlin. On this basis, the museum – with the Future Plan serving as its conceptual and financial blueprint – was able to begin work on its future. We refer to this process as ‘museum evolution’.
Areas of transformation
Since then, the museum has been working flat out on
- the structural development of the museum building and the construction of a collection and research centre in Adlershof (Construction sub-project),
- the cataloguing and opening up of the scientific collection, comprising more than 30 million objects (sub-project: Collection Cataloguing),
- the development of new forms of knowledge dissemination, as well as exchange and collaboration with society (sub-project: Knowledge Transfer).
Vision and implementation
The Natural History Museum of the 21st Century
The ambition of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is clearly stated: we want to become a model for the natural history museum of the 21st century. The museum aims to contribute to the preservation of nature and thus to the future of humanity. We contribute to the protection of democracy by explaining how science works and how it arrives at its findings.
Those who understand how science works are better able to interpret its findings. This strengthens the willingness to follow scientific recommendations and support measures that protect our living environment and the climate – for the benefit of us all. At the same time, it enables simple, short-sighted political solutions to be recognised for what they are.
Next milestones
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Visitors to the special exhibition “ZUGvögel – A Collection on the Move”: The stuffed birds in moving boxes both reflect and symbolise the museum’s relocation of the collection due to building works.
Photo: Thomas Rosenthal
Visualisation of the planned collection and research centre of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin in Adlershof 
Mass digitisation project in “digitize!”: As part of a pilot project, we worked with Picturae to digitise more than 500,000 items from the insect collection.
Photo: Thomas Rosenthal
Visualisation of one of the current courtyards following restoration in accordance with heritage conservation guidelines and the installation of a roof
Photo: gmp Architekten
In future, additional galleries will provide insights into the research collection, such as the 'Deer and Horned Animals' collection shown here.
Photo: Verena Brüning
