BERLIN.- The Museum of Decorative Arts (Kunstgewerbemuseum, KGM) at Berlin’s Kulturforum has opened a deeply reflective and boldly experimental exhibition marking its 40th anniversary. Titled “Heimsuchung: 40 Years KGM at the Kulturforum,” the show invites visitors not into a simple retrospective, but into what the museum calls a kind of cultural séance—a space where the echoes of the past meet the questions of the future.

Opened on November 14, 2025, the exhibition unfolds across multiple galleries and positions the museum’s complex history not as a completed narrative, but as an open field of possibilities. Instead of celebrating its anniversary with nostalgia, the KGM asks visitors to listen—to the institution’s past, to its present, and to the “unwritten futures” that will shape the next decades of its existence.

A Museum Shaped by Division and Vision

Founded originally as an institution dedicated to shaping the taste and craft of artisans, the Museum of Decorative Arts has lived through constant transformation. Its identity was reshaped by Berlin’s historical divides: for years, the museum operated two locations—its current home at the Kulturforum in the former West and Köpenick Palace in the East. The exhibition acknowledges these parallel histories, using them to illuminate the museum’s own layered and sometimes contradictory past.

Rather than presenting a neat timeline, the curators have woven together objects from the collection, archival material, educational models, and early teaching tools. These fragments reveal the museum’s evolution from a 19th-century instructional institution to a 21st-century cultural space wrestling with questions of representation, relevance, and accessibility.

Architecture as Storyteller

A significant portion of the exhibition revisits the long, turbulent construction history of the building designed by architect Rolf Gutbrod—a project that unfolded over nearly two decades. Visitors encounter materials that explore the tensions between preservation needs, architectural ambition, and the museum’s responsibility as a democratic educational space.

One highlight is Gutbrod’s innovative “mediation gallery,” designed to bring learning and interpretation into the heart of the museum. This architectural feature becomes a symbol of the museum’s broader mission—an attempt to create a place where objects, people, and ideas meet on equal ground.

The Future on Display

Unlike most anniversary exhibitions, Heimsuchung looks forward as much as it looks back. With major renovations, a conceptual reorientation, and a new vision for public engagement ahead, the museum uses the exhibition to pose open questions:
What should a decorative arts museum be today? And who is it for?

In this spirit, the exhibition becomes an invitation rather than a conclusion. The curatorial team—Ann-Kathrin Illmann, Carina Kitzenmaier, Dr. Claudia Kanowski, Kevin (Finn) Strüder, and Dr. Sibylle Hoiman—position the public as an active participant in shaping the museum’s next chapter.

A celebration of memory, imagination, and possibility, “Heimsuchung” offers a rare gift: a museum willing to haunt itself, challenge itself, and rethink itself in real time.