Aesthetics of Technology. A new permanent exhibition at the Pinakothek der Moderne

Industrialization since the 19th century is closely bound up with the development of modern design. The mechanization of production gave birth not only to new technical systems, but also to new aesthetic ideas. To this day, machines, apparatuses, and technical devices are fascinating by dint of their formal language – in which function, structural logic, and a precise use of materials combine. Their design is therefore far more than just being an outer skin: It arises from the technological processes and sequences that make an appliance possible in the first place.
 
Many technical objects render these sequences directly visible. Components, casings, and user elements allow us to experience motion, power transmission, the flow of energy, and controls. This interaction of function and aesthetics is especially vivid in mechanical clocks. They not only measure time, but translate an abstract quantity into a precise, spatially experienced order. Cogs, springs, escapement, and hands visualize the complex interaction of the clock’s individual components.
 
Often a special aesthetic arises from the tension between shape and concealed complexity. A glance inside the objects offers unusual and astonishing insights, whereby this is sometimes consciously used as a design element and in other instances only possible after removing the casing.
 
Other exhibits, such as insulators, turbines, ship propellers and, essentially, engines, too, all stand for different forms of energy use and movement. Electronic devices, record players, radios, drills, and tools visualize the ambivalence between utility and design. The choice of materials, the finishing, the precision, and the structural details reveal their quality.
 
This range is expanded to include measuring devices, medical appliances, LED wallpaper, solar panels, quantum computers, ergometers or electronic circuit boards. Strip conductors and components illustrate the abstract logic of electronic systems. And robot arms combine industrial efficiency with an almost choreographed aesthetics of movement.
 
The “Aesthetics of Technology” is part of the redesign of the exhibition tour marking the 100th anniversary of the foundation of Die Neue Sammlung. The spatial concept was devised by Munich design studio OHA (Office Heinzelmann Ayadi).


Opening: 11 November 2026, 7.00 P.M.