The Mercedes-Benz Museum

Recently I visited the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, as it part of one of my major research cases: car brands and their heritage. This case examines how commercial brands – like Mercedes-Benz, Porsche or Ferrari – try to create a sense of community around their businesses and how they use heritage to achieve that.    

Until several years ago, Mercedes-Benz could have been described as an arrogant brand. Consumers simply had to buy new cars, and those cars had to be Mercedeses. Recently this attitude has changed. With the founding of Mercedes-Benz Classic, the company aims at the many Mercedes-Benz owners who enjoy their old- and young timers with each other in a dedicated group. So Mercedes enters upon the service and experience economy by supporting Mercedes-Benz Clubs worldwide with technical assistance, lucrative insurance deals and special events. This change of attitude can been seen as a reaction to the increased competition of new and cheaper Asian cars. By pointing consumers at Mercedes’ rich history and tradition and its role in Western contemporary history, the brand hopes to evoke the emotion that one drives in something more than just a car. 

A new step in this development was the 1999 decision to build a brand new museum which opened in 2006. Mercedes-Benz has had a museum since 1986, which was designed in cooperation with the renowned German exhibition designer HG Merz. During my visit to Stuttgart, this old museum was described by several people as a very luxurious car showroom. In 1999 HG Merz was again approached to design a concept for the new exhibition. The exhibition designer had to respond to three demands: 1) The exhibition had to include the brand’s contemporary history, 2) The exhibition had to deal with Mercedes’ motor sport history and 3) the exhibition had to tell the story of Mercedes’ rich tradition of commercial vehicles. HG Merz then developed an exhibition concept that consisted of a double but simultaneous history of – one the one hand – the brand’s Legends and – on the other hand – the brand’s Collection. The Legend’s route would consist of the brand’s most spectacular, most famous and most beautiful cars; in other words: Mercedes’ highlights. The Collection’s route on its turn would tell the tale of Mercedes’ cars in everyday life. After this, an architecture competition was initiated, which was won by the Dutch architect Ben van Berkel and his UN Studio. With an impressive double helix UN Studio has accomplished an architectural tour de force, which allows for a museum route that tells a simultaneous but two-sided story.

After entering the museum building, a futuristic elevator moves us to the museum’s upper level. In the elevator we hear traffic sounds that travel back in time while at the wall in front of us images are projected that accompany the traffic sounds. When we hear the clatter of hoofs, we reach the upper floor and we are immediately looked in the eyes by a life-size horse. This horse is the starting point of the exhibition’s narrative: “I do believe in the horse. The automobile is no more than a transitory phenomenon”, emperor Wilhelm II tells us. In the first room then, the invention of the world’s first 1 horsepower gas engine (nicknamed “Grandfather’s Clock”) is contextualized by presentation techniques that refer to the nineteenth century: good old-fashioned diorama’s that inform us about the world’s main modes of transportation by the end of the nineteenth century.

Nineteenth century diorama's

In this first room it immediately becomes clear that this museum attempts to be more than a just a luxurious showroom of a distinguished car brand. The narrative techniques remind us of the national stories of the nineteenth century. For example, the wall texts, the audio guide and the exhibits in this room portray the three founders of Mercedes-Benz (Gottlieb Daimler, Karl Benz and Wilhelm Maybach) as real “founding fathers” who “made their dreams come true” and who “achieved in realizing their visions” and Grandfather’s Clock takes on the role of a genuine myth of origin. The main message is that Mercedes-Benz is not an ordinary car brand, but the brand that invented the modern car. Benz “presented the first autonomous automobile with integrated chassis and engine” and Daimler and Maybach “invented the world’s first high-speed gasoline engine in 1883”. Daimler’s motorized vehicles are the museum’s only vehicles that cannot be viewed from all sides and they are ostensively directed in one direction: the direction of progress and innovation.

Grandfather's Clock                                     Gottlieb Daimler's motorized vehicles

After this, we enter the main exhibition halls, that consist of several returning elements. First of all, a timeline of approximately twenty wall panels offer a general overview of some major historical events of each era. After this timeline we enter one of the Legend’s rooms, which are chronologically divided and thematized. The Legend Room of 1900-1914 presents the development of the world’s first Mercedes car, while the Legend Room of 1914-1945 is called “Times of Change” and tells us about the brand’s activities during World War 1 and the Interbellum. In this room the influence of the corporation’s management asserts itself. HG Merz first titled this era “Elegance on the Brink of Destruction”, but this approach on the brand’s history seemed to confronting to the corporation’s management and the title was changed into the more neutral “Times of Change”. The other Legend Rooms are organized around the themes of the “Postwar Miracle” (1946-1960), the era of “Visionaries” (1960-1982) and “A New Beginning (1982-present). Each Legend Room clearly has its own atmosphere and offers a mix of corporate, social and technical history in which the grandeur of Mercedes-Benz is celebrated.

Legend's Room: Postwar Miracle (1946-1960)

The Collection Rooms on their turn offer a mix of ordinary and social history and are divided in the Galleries of Voyagers, Carriers, Helpers, Celebrities and Heroes. These rooms tell the story of Mercedes-Benz in everyday life: Mercedes-Benz collects society’s waste, transports our firemen, and moves our world’s leaders (one of the museum’s finest exhibits is the Pope Mobile).

Gallery of Helpers                                   Gallery of Celebrities

The museum is concluded by a detailed and spectacular presentation of Mercedes-Benz’s race history and a science center that offers a vision on the motorized society of tomorrow. In this room we encounter the brand’s newest technologies and the corporation’s employees inform us about their current activities and they entrust us that they pride themselves on their possibility to work for such an exciting corporation.

While the museum’s narrative is subtly layered and offers a nice blend of traditional glamour heritage and a more down-to-earth social history approach, we can observe an explicit message. Mercedes-Benz was the inventor of the modern car and the dreams and visions of the corporation’s founders are still vivid and recognizable in today’s cars: comfort, safety, speed, durability and social responsibility. As I wrote above, this narrative technique reminds me of the grand national narratives of the nineteenth century and its museums: founding fathers myths of origin and collective values that are incorporated by the whole community and that will characterize the community in the coming future.