iMuseum Man and NatureNymphenburg
Natur gestaltet – Bauwerke und Ökosysteme
Explores how animals build complex structures to survive, and how their construction strategies inspire human architecture and design.
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A wasp colony picked a chair for its nest, and the museum kept the chair. The wasps make that curling paper by chewing wood fibre, the trick that gave the 19th century the idea of making paper from wood.
The show is about how animals build and what people copy from them. It fills the small exhibition hall as the first "Future Lab" for the Naturkundemuseum Bayern planned next door, where the team tests formats on visitors. A live spider spins its web, zebra finches have built nests from plastic and artificial flowers for the artist Björn Braun, and a Bavarian Säckler has tailored the first lederhosen made from mushroom mycelium. It's the one pair in Munich nobody has spilled a Maß on. You can also weave, braid or knot your bit into a stool the visitors are making together.
There's no separate charge: the museum ticket is €3.50, €1 on Sundays, free under 18. It runs until 4 April 2027.
Look for
The wasp chair
Look for the chair a wasp colony took over, its swirling paper nest built straight onto the furniture.
Mushroom lederhosen
The first pair of lederhosen made from fungal mycelium, developed by Phil Ross with BIOTOPIA and sewn by a Bavarian leather tailor; it looks like the real thing.
The live spider
A living spider builds its web in the hall, so what you see depends on when you come.
Candid Huber's mulberry book
The oldest object here: a box made of white mulberry wood holding the tree's leaves, twigs and seeds, plus a silkworm cocoon and raw silk.
Björn Braun's finch nests
Zebra finches given twigs, artificial flowers and plastic wove them into nests, the way wild birds increasingly build with rubbish.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Rainy Days
Skip if
You want a big show: it fills the museum's small exhibition hall.
With kids
Under-18s get in free, and kids can help weave, braid or knot the stool that visitors build together in the hall.
Also at Museum Man and Nature
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
5
- Natur gestaltet – Bauwerke und ÖkosystemeFoto: Karina Hagemann
- Steina: PlaybackCourtesy of Haus der Kunst
- From Turner to van Gogh: The 19th CenturyJ. M. W. Turner / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- Museum Man and NatureMaximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5
- Nymphenburg PalaceBurkhard Mücke / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0