Buchstabenmuseum

The aim of the Buchstabenmuseum (Museum of Letters, Characters and Typefaces) is the preservation and documentation of letters, regardless of culture, language and font systems. Letters stand at the interface between written and visual culture. They are the basic elements of all semiotic textual traditions and written communication.
Letters are ciphers with characteristic shapes and diverse materiality. They carry images, they flow together as tattoos, or can be savored as pasta and pastries. As a result of the increasing homogenization of the urban landscape quality crafted letters and signs are vanishing from public spaces. Due to the disappearance of traditional companies, and also due to revisions of wordmarks and the rise of the Corporate Logo, regional and historic characters become extinct and are lost.

The Museum of Letters works both as a »recycling« company as well as an archive. The museum collects objects that semiotically act as signifiers in the ABC, that carry meaning independent of their material embodiment, in their diversity of functions and across the whole aesthetic bandwidth.
Planed is a museum space in the traditional sense with unconventional exhibits. The Museum of Letters wants to awaken the public’s interest and awareness in typography, and the collection itself. So far there is no comparable museum dealing exclusively with the letter as a contentfree sign.
The magic of the museum unfolds in the detachment of the objects from their actual context, and in future will delight many visitors, from first graders to academic theorists and street artists to design enthusiasts.

Berlin