ARCHITECTURAL CONSTRUCTION KITS

BATISS, Frankreich, 1930er–1940er Jahre; Foto: Sammlung Claus Krieger

ARCHITECTURAL CONSTRUCTION KITS – Plenty to play with!

October 25, 2025 – February 9, 2026 
Exhibition Opening: Friday, October 24, 2025, 7 p.m.
Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) >> ground floor

All children know Lego. But before the Danish company conquered the international market there were hundreds of firms that from about 1880 onwards produced an almost infinite array of construction kits. The DAM has the unique opportunity to draw on a private collection of architectural construction kits tto realize an exhibition that will break through the “glass barrier” that typically divides exhibits (for conservational reasons) from the visitors.
Since the winter semester 2024/25, DAM has been collaborating with Prof. Andreas Kretzer of Stuttgart’s Hochschule für Technik (HFT) and his students to develop concepts that supplement the invaluable original building blocks with reconstructed buildings on a larger scale. The first semester laid marvelous foundations that now in 2025 are being implemented in a production phase. The cooperation between DAM and HFT sets out to use the reconstructed buildings to render the most interesting architectural construction kits “playable”. So many building blocks and corresponding construction manuals are being prepared that several visitors can at the same time and without additional instructions get to know the world of “playing building” from the “pre-logo era”. And the students are also trying out immersion in a virtual world of models using VR goggles. The idea is to present about 60 construction kits from the collection of graphic artist Claus Krieger, which features some 110 different kits. Visitors will be able to play and develop new buildings at about ten play stations integrated centrally into the exhibition.

A collaboration of DAM with Claus Krieger and HFT Stuttgart