Berlin is well-known for its vibrant art scene, world-class museums, and a history visible on nearly every street corner. Yet, for twenty years, one small, unique institution quietly captured the city’s past in a way no other museum could: the Berlin Buchstabenmuseum—the Museum of Letters.
Founded to preserve, restore, and exhibit signage from Berlin and beyond, this museum offered an unusual and deeply personal journey back into the city’s commercial and typographic history. Yet, its recent closure in October 2025 is a setback that highlights a concerning pattern in the German capital.
I first visited the museum back in 2014 for an exhibition on calligraphy and typography. That was love at first sight, and I was there back again every couple of years. But the COVID-19 pandemic and their movie about the Hansaviertel made it a bit tricky for me to find the time to visit again.
But once I read online that they were about to close, I had to go there for a last visit, my goodbye to the Buchstabenmuseum. At least, for now.
Capturing the City’s Voice in Neon and Steel
If you don’t know, the Berlin Buchstabenmuseum was launched in 2005 by founders Barbara Dechant and Anja Schulze, and it was truly the first of its kind in the world. Its core mission was a vital one: to rescue and document typographic objects from public and semi-public spaces. This meant collecting everything from individual letters and large-scale advertising signage to pictograms, spanning all sizes and materials.
For any typography lover out there, or even a casual observer of urban life, the museum was a magical place. Walking through its display depot was an unforgettable experience, a short journey back in time to the past of a Berlin that doesn’t exist anymore. Visitors could get up close to the massive, colorful signs that once shaped the look and feel of Berlin’s streets.
The collection included some truly iconic pieces: the original lettering from Berlin Schönefeld Airport, the elegant “Wintergarten” letters from Potsdamer Straße, and the delightfully specific “Ornamental Fish” sign that once graced Frankfurter Tor.
Each piece told a story, not just of its history, production, and typography, but of the businesses and eras they represented. It was really magical.
A Ghost Sign Gallery: The Neon Era
A significant part of the Berlin Buchstabenmuseum collection commemorated the bright, bold neon era of family businesses. Think of the elaborate, ornate lettering that once advertised local shops. The first ads were those bright signs that drew attention to the stores on the main streets that were where most of the local business was happening.
Today, many of these small, family-run establishments have been displaced by chain stores and the stark efficiency of modern LED technology.
By meticulously collecting and preserving these colorful, hand-crafted signs, the Berlin Buchstabenmuseum provided a crucial link to a not-so-distant past. Seeing these letters at close range was an unusual and powerful experience, transforming the everyday signs we once ignored into nostalgic portals. It gave a different perspective to the signs that I see in my day-to-day life on top of buildings all around me.
The Tragic Closure of a Unique Institution in Berlin
The news that the Berlin Buchstabenmuseum closed for the last time on October 5th, after twenty years of operation, felt like a literal loss of a piece of Berliner history. It caught me by surprise, but the reasons behind the closure are sadly familiar in the cultural sector, especially for a dedicated, volunteer-run museum.
The central issue was a brutal combination of fixed costs—primarily high rent and maintenance—and a dire lack of long-term financial support. While the museum appreciated the public interest and the increased visitor numbers, nearly all the revenue generated went straight into these immediate operational expenses.
In an interview, founder and director Barbara Dechant expressed profound disappointment regarding the lack of interest from the local government in preserving this private museum. She explained that running the museum had become “simply unmanageable” due to the high financial risk and the constant struggle for funding.
Now that the Berlin Buchstabenmuseum is closed, what’s next for the collection?
The closure raises a crucial question about the fate of this irreplaceable collection. According to what I read online, Barbara Dechant and her colleagues are determined to keep the collection together. But it might be challenging to do that. She also had some closing remarks that paint a sobering picture of Berlin’s cultural landscape. She lamented the city’s failure to realize that places like the Berlin Buchstabenmuseum, alongside small clubs and theaters, are what truly make Berlin unique.
“If all these small projects… disappear, are pushed to the outskirts of the city, or can no longer find suitable venues, then Berlin will, in my opinion, become truly interchangeable. What remains in the end is a noisy, dirty city,” she concluded.
The pictures you are seeing here are from my last visit to the museum, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, during the last weekend that the Berlin Buchstabenmuseum was open. It felt a bit unreal to visit the place and see that it’s closing down, but I was happy to be able to visit it for the last time.
For now, the era of the Berlin Buchstabenmuseum is over, leaving a gap in the city’s cultural heart. It serves as a potent reminder that valuable and distinctive institutions can occasionally be the most vulnerable. Demonstrating how even the loudest, most vibrant voices of the past can be muffled by high fixed costs and a lack of municipal support.
