iTechnisches Museum Wien (Vienna Technical Museum)Penzing
More than Recycling
A five-level special exhibition on the circular economy: how food, clothing, housing and leisure could be rethought from a product's start, with projects like algae-based clothing.
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You start at a conveyor belt of things someone threw away, set up to ask whether any of it belongs in a museum. A livestream shows a light bulb that has been burning since 1901. The director calls it his favourite object from before planned obsolescence, in a building that also holds a Silver Arrow.
The show climbs five levels from Ebene 2, on your right as you enter. Food comes first, with cut-through soil sections. You enter the clothing chapter through an oversized T-shirt, past a rail of fast fashion and fibres made from algae. Later come wooden Velcro, a claw machine for trying out recycling, Barbara Iweins's catalogue of all 12,795 things she owns, and a washing machine built so every part can be replaced. A "Utopia Path" collects your choices and sends you home with your own utopia as a digital message.
It's included in the €18 museum ticket, and under-19s are free. Free 45-minute tours in German (ages 14+) run on set dates.
Look for
The 1901 light bulb
In the repair chapter, a livestream shows a bulb that has glowed without a break for more than 120 years.
The giant T-shirt
You walk into the clothing chapter through an oversized T-shirt, onto a long clothes rail of fast-fashion pieces.
The swimsuit made of straws
A one-piece swimsuit made from recycled drinking straws, one of the museum's own picks from the show.
Barbara Iweins's 12,795 objects
The Belgian artist logged every single thing she owns, set beside the question of how much we store and never use.
The recycling claw machine
An arcade-style grabber in the plastics chapter lets you play your way through what happens to recycled material.
Good for
- Rainy Days
- Teenagers
With kids
Under-19s get in free. On set dates, a German-language workshop for ages 7 to 12 (€7.50) turns an old T-shirt into a tote bag.
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Image credits
5
- More than RecyclingCourtesy of Technisches Museum Wien (Vienna Technical Museum)
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- Technisches Museum Wien (Vienna Technical Museum)C.Stadler/Bwag, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0