The German Mining Museum is one of the largest and most traditional museums in Germany. Originally used as a training centre for young miners, it currently hosts the Leibniz Research Museum for Georesources, whose mission is to collect, preserve, research, exhibit and communicate the material heritage of mining. Furthermore, the German Mining Museum is more than just a museum that recounts history, it is also a symbol for an entire region. It is a piece of the history of German coal mining, which came to an end with the closure of the last colliery in 2018. To do justice to its mission as a place of remembrance, we took on the general renovation and redesign of the new permanent exhibition together with the architects of res-d.  

The Museum’s Redesign
Four independent thematic tours were developed for the German Mining Museum’s redesign: "Hard Coal", "Mining", "Mineral Resources" and "Art and Culture". In terms of their design, the greatest challenge was to set up the tours independently without them falling apart. Therefore, each tour has its own individual dramaturgy and scenography, which are framed by elements of comprehensive graphic design. A specially developed, distinct colour coding of the individual tours is supplemented by different types of hatching based on geological mapping. A uniform typography and a common style for infographics and co. neatly close off all four tours.

Interaction
Throughout the museum, guests are continuously encouraged to participate in a myriad of ways. These range from simple elements such as peepers, which reveal surprising perspectives, to space-consuming games in which the players become discoverers. For the target group of children under eight years of age, a children's path offers playful content throughout all of the museum's tours. Designed without text, they hold no barriers for young visitors. The stations include, for example, small comics, a digital memory game and a crawling tunnel.

Media & Exhibits
The museum's redesign included the creation of more than 120 media stations, ranging from large projections with numerous beamers, audio stations and white model projections to countless information terminals containing films or in-depth information.
In addition to these digital elements, the German Mining Museum is also home to unique treasures. An incredible number of models provide insight into every conceivable aspect of mining. From a purely financial point of view, models of this size and quality are difficult to realise today – which is why these pre-existing treasures were integrated into the newly designed tours.

With about 8000 m2 of exhibition space, the Mining Museum is one of our most significant projects. Information and pictures of the design of the individual tours can be found here.