Today I went to the Museum of Technology in Vienna (the Technisches Museum) and took a trip through time. For 10 Euro you get quite a spectacular walk through the history of human innovation. Inside the 22,000 square meter building you will find giant train engines, trolley cars, early airplanes, a helicopter, and a seemingly infinite plethora of human innovations. 

It’s so interesting to see our evolution in technology, to see the multitude and progression of early vacuums, coffee makers, pianos, engines, measuring devices, lightbulbs and other inventions- this museum is truly impressive. Even the children’s play room is two stories and equipped with a crane that picks up foam bricks to build a wall, has a network of play tubes, and a real antique fire engine.

A few favorite features of mine at the museum include a hand made, layered-paper topographical map of Vienna from the 1850s, a scream chamber that measures the decibels of your pipes, a space room with a full scale model of sputnik, radioactive uranium glassware, and one of the first static generators. 

Layered-paper map of Vienna in the 1800’s

One of the first static generators

The old machines and inventions feel nostalgic, even to me who wasn’t alive when most of them were made. They bring me to think about another time, a time when manufactured things were much more novel and precious, a time before this time of material abundance of mad-made objects.

And yet all these things have lead us to where we are now, to this point in technology where really anything seems possible… eventually. 

If you find yourself in Vienna, I highly recommend this place. Go early- You could spend all day in the museum and not see everything.

More soon~