Stabi Kulturwerk

The Staatsbibliothek in Berlin invites you to the Stabi Kulturwerk. Around 300 priceless artefacts from the many collections are on display. The folios, paper manuscripts, printed graphics, globes, and other specimens from around the world reflect six centuries of library history.

The new library museum

The Stabi Kulturwerk was established during the general renovation of the historic Staatsbibliothek Unter den Linden.

It houses around 1,000 square metres of exhibition space on the ground floor. The special exhibit and area for temporary exhibits have a state-of-the-art design with fixed multimedia stations and sound installations.
For example, visitors can use a multimedia "Living Book" to examine the Berlin copy of the Gutenberg Bible. QR codes on the text panels also give you access to the digital page of the exhibition speciments, which provides all the interesting information about them.

Also…Why not visit throughout the year? Most of the artefacts are highly sensitive, including to light, meaning they cannot spend all their time in glass displays. As a result, they have to be switched out for other objects every quarter year.

Not to be missed

• Flora Japanica, collection of plant images from Japan, 1683
• Qabus-nama, Ottoman Prince's Mirror, 1698
• Kurt Schwitters, Anna Blume, Poems 1919
• Johann Sebastian Bach, Mass in B minor, 1733 or 1748/49
• Mahzor, Jewish prayer book by rite, Ashkenaz (Central Europe), 14th century

Your visit

General and subject-specific tours are available. There is also an interactive space created specifically for workshops and other events. Get refreshed at the museum café.

More culture in the area

You are in Berlin's new cultural heart. The magnificent boulevard Unter den Linden is just a stone's throw away from the most important sites in Berlin's historic centre: A short walk away is the world-renowned Museum Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Museum Island also contains the Berliner Dom, opposite which is the Humboldt Forum, where you can learn all about African and Asian cultures at the Asian Art Museum and Ethnological Museum. From here you can take the Museum Line, U-Bahn U5, for a quick and accessible tour of other sites.
Or stroll down Unter den Linden to Brandenburg Gate , stopping along the way at one of Berlin’s most beautiful squares, the Gendarmenmarkt. Don’t forget to check out the many memorials on the way – Berlin is the sculpture capital, after all!