Samurai Museum Berlin

On May 8, 2022, the Samurai Museum Berlin opened in Auguststraße in Berlin-Mitte.

The museum houses the largest collection of authentic samurai artifacts outside Japan. Visitors to Europe’s first museum of samurai art can immerse themselves in the legendary world of the Japanese warriors on 1,500 square meters.

“By opening my collection at the Samurai Museum Berlin to visitors of all ages and backgrounds, I want to share my enthusiasm for Japanese culture and samurai history across the generations. We want this to be a place of vibrant knowledge mediation and to make tangible connections between cultures, space, and time. While promoting curiosity and an understanding of different cultures, we invite to an open dialogue between people and cultures.”
(Peter Janssen, collector and the museum’s founder).

The culture and history of the samurai are told by more than 1,000 exhibits from the private collection of Peter Janssen. The exhibits are staged interactively with a multimedia format, using innovative technologies to take visitors on a breathtaking journey through time. The museum presentation conceived by Ars Electronica Solutions makes this distant era a playful experience.

“To be able to present this unique collection of Samurai culture to a local and international audience in cooperation with Peter Janssen is an honorable task for us. In the heart of Berlin, these masterpieces of art and craft awaken from their deep sleep and speak to us from times long past about the myth and legend of a timeless philosophy and culture.”
(Chris Bruckmayr, Head of Products & Events / Ars Electronica Solutions)

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„Because everything Ars Electronica has come up with is remarkable. There are no conventional signs for the objects; all explanations are provided on screens next to the display cases. Motion sensors activate the lighting or even short accompanying films, and at the end of the large hall on the first floor is a Nō theater stage transplanted from Japan to Berlin, for which central scenes of famous plays were recorded in the country of origin with real actors in front of a green screen to be projected here onto gauze surfaces-an incredibly lifelike effect. The same is true at the end of the tour with the projection of the tea ceremony of two women in a small pavilion. But there are also scientifically groundbreaking exhibits, such as the computer tomography images of the complex structure of a samurai helmet or, as a highlight of vividness, a documentation of the forging process of a samurai sword blade. What is presented here is museum education at its best.“
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)

Click here for the comprehensive press release!
More about the creation of the museum here!

DRONE FLIGHT
© SAMURAI MUSEUM BERLIN

© SAMURAI Museum Berlin, Drone flight Ruben Meier