The three future circles
Humans, nature, technology — futures you touch, not read about.
Fridolin freudenfett — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Matthias Süßen — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Matthias Süßen — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Lgrb — CC BY-SA 4.0
The Futurium is a museum of a single question: how do we want to live? No antiquities, no paintings — possible futures instead: how humanity might dwell, eat, move and work decades from now, laid out in a shimmering glass building near Berlin's main station — with completely free entry, which alone makes it one of Berlin's best deals. The upper floor shows the future in three circles — humans, nature, technology — through models and experiments you handle yourself. The basement holds the Future Lab, where visitors try 3D printing, coding and tomorrow's technologies hands-on: paradise for curious teenagers. Everything runs in German and English, and the modern interactive style makes two hours fly even for museum sceptics.
Humans, nature, technology — futures you touch, not read about.
3D printing, coding and hands-on experiments in the basement — teenage heaven.
A shimmering glass façade and a free roof terrace over station and river.
Alexanderufer 2, 10117 Berlin
SpreebogenparkA public park on the bend of the Spree directly behind the Reichstag, in the hea3 minutes walk4.4
Berlin Museum of Medical HistoryThe Museum of Medical History at the Charité hospital is built on a collection a4 minutes walk4.7
Hamburger Bahnhof — Museum of Contemporary ArtA nineteenth-century railway terminus turned into Berlin's leading contemporary 6 minutes walk4.2
Reichstag BuildingThe Reichstag is the seat of the German parliament and one of Berlin's most impo7 minutes walk4.8
Platz der RepublikPlatz der Republik is the wide green lawn stretching in front of the Reichstag. 8 minutes walk4.7The sweet spot is ten to sixteen — interactive without being silly. Adults into technology and climate find it genuinely stimulating; small children find things to touch even if the meaning escapes them. Anyone uninterested in the future should skip it.
It touches the main station, so make it arrival day's first stop or departure day's last — two excellent free hours between trains. From it, a fine riverside walk leads to the government quarter and the Reichstag.
General entry usually needs none, though busy seasons may use free timed tickets. The lab's limited activities are booked on site — register first thing, then wander.