Most museums and small children have a complicated relationship. The “please don’t touch” signs, the hushed rooms, the resigned looks from other visitors when your four-year-old asks loudly why that painting is just a dot. The Hubertus Wald Kinderreich inside the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe has none of this. It’s 250 square metres in the basement of a neo-renaissance building next to Hauptbahnhof where children aged 5 to 12 are specifically invited to touch, build, film, photograph, dress up, and make shadows do things shadows don’t normally do. It’s supervised by museum educators. Materials are provided. Adults are welcome but the kids are in charge.

The space is called Der Garten der Dinge, the Garden of Things, and it’s been designed around the idea that design can be understood through doing rather than looking. There are craft stations, a trickfilm animation table, an overhead camera where kids can make objects appear to float, a shadow theatre wall, and the Verwandelwäldchen, a dressing-up forest where racks of costumes wait to be tried on and photographed. The content connects loosely to the wider museum themes around design, architecture, and craft, but in a way that doesn’t need a lecture to make sense. Kids get it by playing with it.

One Important Thing to Know Before You Go

The Kinderreich is not open every day. During school term it’s open weekends, public holidays, and Hamburg school holidays only. Groups can book Tue-Fri by arrangement through Museumsdienst Hamburg. If you’re planning a family visit on a random Tuesday in October, you’ll be walking into the permanent collection, which is excellent, but the Kinderreich won’t be open. Check before you go.

The rest of the museum runs Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00. Thursdays are currently also 10:00-18:00 until further notice. Closed Mondays.

The Café and Everything Else

The museum itself is worth the ticket even without the Kinderreich. One of the most important applied arts museums in Europe, spanning 9,000 years of design history across three floors. There’s an Art Nouveau room, an entire Verner Panton mirror canteen, East Asian ceramics, contemporary design, and rotating special exhibitions.

The café is called Destille and is on the first floor. It serves hot meals, freshly prepared salads, homemade cake, and coffee.

Getting there is simple. Walk from Hauptbahnhof Süd, five minutes. Everything from S-Bahn to regional trains drops you there. Paid parking at Hühnerposten nearby if you’re driving. One accessible disabled parking space at Steintorplatz directly in front.

Why Parents Love It:

• Kids under 18 free. Adults from €14.
• Café Destille with food and coffee on the first floor
• Five-minute walk from Hauptbahnhof, no car needed
• Hamburg CARD discount at the door

Why Kids Love It:

• Shadow theatre, animation station, overhead camera, and a full costume forest
• Hands-on design activities with no “please don’t touch” signs in sight
• Museum educators on hand without being intrusive
• The rest of the museum has things worth staring at too