19 Best Museums in Düsseldorf, Germany to Visit

Dusseldorf is known to be a charming and picturesque town in Germany. It is A destination with stunning beauty and many museums in Dusseldorf. History and art enthusiasts travelers will enjoy and be in glee to tour and explore then for the blessing of art galleries across the town.

Germany has many museums, and there are many to discover in Dusseldorf! A wonderful historical and art travel adventure awaits in this town.

Dusseldorf is most known for its influential fashion and art scenes. The city hosts one of the world’s leading fashion trade fairs, the “Igedo World Fair,” and boasts a prestigious art academy, the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf.

Additionally, it’s known for its pioneering influence on electronic/experimental music and its unique blend of traditional and contemporary architecture.

If you’re planning a trip to Germany and are into such an adventure, adding Dusseldorf to your itinerary is necessary. Dive into Dusseldorf’s best museums to explore.

Best Museums in Düsseldorf, Germany

Filmmuseum Düsseldorf

Address: Schulstraße 4, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Filmmuseum Düsseldorf is a film or movie museum that includes collections of early-history technical equipment for cinematography, props, costumes, decorations, cameras, set models, filming devices, etc.

The knowledge of film production, performance practices, distribution, and show strategies is presented before the museum’s visions. The museum also has a section dedicated to animated movies and animation technology.

This, therefore, implies that in a bid to preserve ancient filmmaking history, the museum continues to keep in contact with modern and new developments reflecting the film industry.

Temporary special exhibitions in the museum particularly reflect various German topics on film history relatedness and other international nations.

The museum in 1983 moved to Wilhelm-Marx’s first-floor deck at Kasernenstrasse 6 when Klaus G. Jaeger was still the museum director. The museum’s special exhibitions are usually themed or come with names.

The film museum is dedicated to four things: collecting and storing film and its related items, creating accessibility, presenting the holdings to the public through exhibitions and organization of seminars/workshops, and supporting filmmakers from within Düsseldorf.

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Maritime Museum

Address: Burgpl. 30, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany

A maritime museum or nautical museum specializes in exhibiting objects relating to ships and other water travel mediums. This museum, as the name goes, and as the knowledge had earlier been established, specializes in displaying items related to the profession or occupation of transportation by water bodies.

The museum’s collections include a historic ship, ship models, and many other miscellaneous objects related to ships and shipping, such as uniforms for ship workers and cutlery.

For the museum, these objects are constantly monitored to ensure that in preserving Cologne’s history of maritime (which, of course, stands for varying reasons), they are also maintained properly so that they appear as they used to be in the time of their prevalence. The museum welcomes a whooping sum of visitors to it annually.

These visitors come in for varying purposes: some for recreation of times, others to aid their research on maritime courses. Fortunately, the museum staff is always on the go to educate visitors on the working principles of some of the ships and other basic knowledge that may be required for the given field of research.

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Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf

Address: Berger Allee 2, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf (English: The City Museum Düsseldorf) is an urbanized history museum located in Berger, in the North Rhine-Westphalian state capital of Düsseldorf, Germany. The museum stands by the southern edge of the city’s heart in the historical Palais Spee in Carlstadt.

The museum was established in 1874 by the city council in the Hondheim Palace (or Palais Hondheim) on Akademiestrasses. The movement to create the museum began with donations of oil paintings from Count von Stutterheim.

In November 1879, the museum moved into the gallery building of the majestic palace on Burgplatz. A section called “war collection” was built in 1914. From 1927, it was housed where the Museum of Applied Arts used to be in Friedrichplatz. The museum’s current name was given in 1933.

Bruckner was the museum director from 1935 to 1946, and in the first year of his service as museum director, the department or unit named “Germanenschau” in the museum was established. The Germanenschau unit consists of traveling exhibits.

With the aid of Heinrich Etterich in the same year, Bruckner also established the exhibition of history’s oldest navigation collections on the Rhine.

Goethe-Museum Düsseldorf

Address: Jacobistraße 2, 40211 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Goethe-Museum Düsseldorf is a museum in Jacobistraße 2, 40211 Düsseldorf, Germany. The museum was founded in 1956. It is one of Germany’s three representative Goethe museums, the other two being the Goethe House in Frankfurt am Main and the Goethe National Museum in Weimar.

The museum is supported by the state capital of Düsseldorf and the Anton and Katharina Kippenberg Foundation. Düsseldorf’s commitment to support, equip, maintain, and develop the museum was signed in the foundation contract dated February 13, 1953.

The museum’s current director is Christof Wingertszahn (since 2013). Other individuals who served as directors include Hellmuth von Maltzahn (1955–1965), Jörn Göres (1966–1992), and Volkmar Hansen (1993–2012).

The museum has such units as the manuscript archive, the research library, an event center where a series of programs may be hosted, and the art collection unit. About fifty thousand testimonies from Goethe’s time are on display in the museum.

The museum used to be located in the Hofgärtnerhaus, a baroque-style structure that was the official residence of the incumbent court gardener. Many outstanding temporary exhibitions that have earned the museum a certain kind of grace have been held and hopefully will continually be held.

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Hetjens-Museum

Address: Schulstraße 4, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Hetjens Museum is a historic ceramic museum that has existed for over eight thousand years and is home to many international exhibits from around the world.

The museum has been called the most universal for this characterization. It is named after Laurenz Heinrich Hetjens (1830-1906), on whose estate the exhibition center was found aground.

Hetjens was a journeyman upholsterer and saddler, known to be successful in his post as technical director of a glass factory in Aachen. Hetjens devoted himself to collecting artworks and furthering deeper research of the history, origin, and formation of arts after his marriage to Maria Catharina Regnier.

He focused on collecting Rhenish stoneware of the Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque eras. He participated in excavations that proclaimed him to the world and invested money in buying other excavations.

Upon his death, his will contained his writing, ordering that up to one hundred and fifty thousand of his gold marks be made available for a possible museum construction so that the public could view the collections that would come with his name.

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Museum Kunstpalast

Address: Ehrenhof 4-5, 40479 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Museum Kunstpalast is a contemporary art museum and one of the best attractions in Düsseldorf, Germany. It was established in the year 1916, first as Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf. The museum is dedicated to displaying typical communal art collections of various origins.

The museum’s very first exhibit was a donation from Jan Wellem and his wife, Anna Maria Luisa de Medici, and a contribution from other rich Düsseldorf citizens.

In the nineteenth century, Lambert Krahe’s collections (previously stored in the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf for academic purposes) were incorporated into the museum, creating a noticeable expansion. The museum’s abode, the Ehrenhof, was constructed in the 1920s based on an architectural design by Wilhelm Kreis.

The museum’s collections consist of fine arts items originating from the Classical era until the present. These include drawings, a collection of over seventy thousand graphic exhibits and photographs, sculptures, applied arts, and some glass collections.

The graphic collections include fourteen thousand Italian baroque graphics. The museum also displays works from Europe, Persia/Iran, and Japan. Art collections in the museum also include artworks from the Gothic, Baroque, Renaissance, the time of Goethe, and the nineteenth and twentieth-century collections.

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Kunstsammlung

Address: Ständehausstraße 1, 40217 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, in general, is the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia’s art collection situated in Ständehausstraße 1, 40217 Düsseldorf, Germany. Three venues were mapped in different geographical positions—the K20 at Grabbeplatz, the K21 at Standehaus, and the Schmela Haus.

This particular arm of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen has become the second major pillar of the modern and contemporary art collection. The structure that houses the Ständehaus in Düsseldorf was built between 1876 and 1800.

Julius Raschdorff designed it in the Renaissance style. The Provincial Diet of the Prussian province of the Rhineland occupied the building for many years after its erection. From 1949 to 1988, the Parliament of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia took over the residence.

Fourteen years after the Parliament relocated from the building, the structure was reconstructed for three years based on a design by the architects Kiessler+Partner of Munich. After the reconstruction to resemble a contemporary museum, the K21 museum took over the residence.

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Classic Remise Dusseldorf

Address: Harffstraße 110A, 40591 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Classic Remise Dusseldorf is located right in a historic locomotive roundhouse. The center was opened in 2006 and has since improved its services, beauty, and grace.

The Classic Remise Dusseldorf has several garages where classic cars and other land vehicles are parked for dealers. There are shops, too, where spare parts are sampled.

Other sections for clothing, models of cars, accessories, and restaurants and eateries are inside the center. The Classic Remise Dusseldorf is actually one of the most attractive places in the whole city.

The center’s previous name was acquired in 2010 by Meilenwerk AG. Thus, there is a need to change the center’s current name to Classic Remise Dusseldorf.

The center is usually open Monday through Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. The Classic Remise Dusseldorf is a lovely place to be.

Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum Dusseldorf

Address: Kaiserswerther Str. 380, 40474 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum Dusseldorf is a zoo and museum that occupies roughly a landscape of six thousand eight hundred square meters.

The museum was opened in 1987, then known as Löbbecke-Museum + Aquazoo. As of 2018, around five hundred and sixty species of animals were exhibited in the aquarium, terrarium, and tropical hall.

These can be found in the museum’s twenty-five themed rooms. Other exhibits include a collection of 1,500 history exhibits, interactive stations, and models. The museum’s origins can be traced back to two sources.

The first is to Theodor Lobbecke, a pharmacist who, after his death, had his collections as a property of Dusseldorf city, which was then put on to become some of the exhibits that would form the museum.

The museum was built three years after Theodor died in 1904 and was completely named after him. The second source discusses the integration between the museum and the Dusseldorf Zoo in 1930. The Dusseldorf Zoo had long existed, even before the museum’s creation.

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Museum for European Garden Art

Address: Benrather Schloßallee 100, 40597 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Museum for European Garden Art is an art museum spread over two thousand square meters. The museum focuses on displaying a collection of exhibits that portray the arts of medieval Europe. These arts are coupled with natural beauty in neatly trimmed and delicately carved natural life forms like plants, flowers, etc.

The museum’s exhibits comprise beautiful paintings, stunning graphics, and sculptures of varying sizes and forms. They are also displayed as exhibits of literature, including interesting books, poetry, and models that detail the history and profile of garden art.

Special lectures are conducted in the Schloss Benrath section of the museum. Guided tours are also possible in the museum, and they come at regular intervals.

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Kunsthalle Düsseldorf

Address: Grabbepl. 4, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Kunsthalle Düsseldorf is an exhibition hall or museum displaying contemporary art that is open to the public. The building occupied by the art center was erected in 1967 according to the architectural design of Konrad Beckmann and Brockes.

The building is in the Brutalist style. Since its erection, two institutions have used it: the Kunsthalle and the Kunstverein fur de Rhheinlande und Westfalen.

The conceptual direction of the museum is quite the kind that has never been seen before—it stands out very distinctly. The museum focuses on these contemporary arts’ historical and local reference points.

The Kunsthalle Museum usually holds discussions that deeply explore the arts of today and their immediacy. The museum must reveal the roots of these art forms and ensure continuity within the artistic discourse. For renovation purposes, the museum was temporarily on lockdown.

The architectural team from rheinflügel took charge of the renovation assignments. The renovation succeeded in enhancing the museum’s outlook. The interior beauty and simplicity first enchant visitors.

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THE CALI DREAMS MUSEUM

Address: Erkrather Str. 343, 40231 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Cali Dreams Museum is a large museum beautified with many colors. It is located in Erkrather Str. 343, 40231 Düsseldorf, Germany, and its landscape extends more than one thousand five hundred square meters. The museum has over twenty-five different rooms. The museum sends one into a dreamland, one full of fantasy.

A stroll could be taken in the gigantic Cadillac of the US, walking through the beautiful Chinatown delicately beautified with colorful ornaments.

The Cali Dreams Museum is a product of artistic contributions from different international artists. Though research may be conducted on the museum’s exhibits, its major concern is providing people with as much fun as they require.

Music plays on in the museum, coupled with perfect lighting. There are lots of perfect spots to take colorful, amazing pictures. The museum fills its visitors with memories and experiences they will never forget, at least not in a hurry.

Admission into the museum comes in various ranges. For kids up to three years, no admission fee to the museum is required. Children from four to thirteen get discounted admission. The Cali Dreams Museum isn’t so far from Düsseldorf Main Station (Hauptbahnhof). Among many other exhibits are a pink Cadillac and a train from the Golden Gym.

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NRW-Forum Düsseldorf

Address: Ehrenhof 2, 40479 Düsseldorf, Germany

The NRW Forum Wirtschaft und Kultur, known as Forum NRW, is a museum that examines North Rhine-Westphalia’s development and economic standards. The museum is housed in the Ehrenhof complex, which Wilhelm Kreis built between 1925 and 1926. The same complex also houses the Kunstpalast Museum.

When it opened in the 1970s, it was known as the Museum für Industrie und Wirtschaft (English: Museum for Industry and Economy). The current name was acquired in the 1990s, along with the concept behind the earlier forms of display in the museum.

Initially, the exhibitions displayed were permanent, but later, they varied depending on different themes. The NRW-Forum Dusseldorf’s museum bases its exhibitions on historical, political, social, or themes relating to economic conditions, all viewed from different angles.

The museum specializes in photography and new media collections. Exhibits include Anton Corbijn, Media Lounge/The Hire, Mutanten, Alexander McQueen—Catwalk Videos, Der Traum vom Turm, Martin Kippenberger—Bodencollage, Andy Warhol—Myths, etc.

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Neanderthal Museum

Address: Talstraße 300, 40822 Mettmann, Germany

The Neanderthal Museum is located on the site first discovered by a man, the Neanderthal. The museum displays collections centered on the evolution of man.

The Neanderthal Museum was built based on a design by Zamp Kelp, Julius Krauss, and Arno Brandlhuber in 1996. This resultant design resulted from a completion held in 1993, where very skilled architects participated (130) in rendering their proposed designs in the competition.

The museum records a total of one hundred and seventy visitors per annum. One can find an archaeological park at the original discovery site in the museum. One can equally find a Stone Age workshop and a trail of art named “Human Traces.” Signs in the museum come in English as well as in German.

The museum’s multimedia exhibition was upgraded in 2006. Typically, the museum aims to portray the background of people who immigrated from the savannas to contemporary cities, emphasizing Neanderthals. A collection of casts of the main human fossils represents the evolution of the hominids.

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Sammlung Philara

Address: Birkenstraße 47a, 40233 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Sammlung Philara is a privately owned museum in a one thousand seven-hundred square meter space with an impressive, stunning architectural construction.

Gil Bronner’s collections are very well displayed in the museum. His art collections have ceilings nine meters above the floor. Over twenty years, Gil Bronner has been able to purchase about one thousand three hundred artworks that make up his collection.

Different internationally established artists have designed or installed these artworks. A terraced sculpture is on the roof of the museum building. The museum has a temporary exhibition, where items are rotated over time.

Events such as concerts are held in the museum from time to time. In addition, the museum gives room for lectures, where people get to be educated on the courses of the form of art they seek to know. Readings also take place in the museum.

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K20, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen

Address: Grabbepl. 5, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany

The K20, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, was founded in 1961 by the North Rhine-Westphalia state government. Upon entering the museum building, one first enters the Grabbe Halle section on the same level. This section is the largest gallery space, with ceilings about fourteen meters high. The hall alone measures about six hundred square meters and has no visible support pillars.

The first upper story’s large hall is designed to reflect beautiful natural light. The museum commenced a measure extension program in 2008, and by 2010, the new construction was completed and the building inaugurated.

During these two years of expansion/renovation, the museum was temporarily closed. The entire museum has two exhibition halls. Both halls lack pillar supports and, if joined together, will measure about 200 square meters. Temporary exhibitions are displayed in the Klee Halle exhibition hall.

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Memorial Dusseldorf

Address: Mühlenstraße 29, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany

Memorial Dusseldorf, also known as Places of Remembrance and Memorial Dusseldorf, is an exhibition center on the western side of the Standthaus in the Old Town Alstadt.

The Memorial Museum seeks to commemorate or honor those who were victims of the violence of National Socialism. It includes a research center, which provides resources required for research programs, and an archive center.

The museum has since 1987 been in existence. In 2015, the museum was expanded to triple its former size. This expansion included the permanent exhibition complemented by the “Dusseldorf children and young people under National Socialism.”

The museum’s current location appears to be the perfect location for it, considering that the same location had borne rooms that served as interrogation rooms, detention cells for the Gestapo and SS police during the National Socialism era, and offices for the perpetrators of National Socialism.

The police headquarters was in this location from 1926 to 1934, which the Gestapo fully controlled. Later, the SS and the District military command parked in the house for years. Admission to the museum is completely free.

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Julia Stoschek Collection / Foundation e.V.

Address: Schanzenstraße 54, 40549 Düsseldorf, Germany

Julia Stoschek Collection / Foundation e.V. is an arts center named after Julia Stoschek (born 1975), a German collector of media arts and a billionaire.

Julia Stoschek partners with Brose Fahrzeugteile GmbH & CO. KG., a large automotive supplier with around 25,000 employees and sales of about six billion euros annually.

Upon Julia’s graduation from college, she took an interest in cultural management, which had in some way inspired the collection center named after her today. The Julia Stoschek Collection is a private collection of contemporary international arts focusing on time-based media.

The collection was established in 2007 when Julia was thirty-two years old. The collection consists of more than seven hundred works crafted by about two hundred different artists, a majority of whom are European and American.

When Love is not Enough Wall was developed on the second exhibition floor as a permanent exhibition by Olafur Eliasson when the museum was opening. The museum’s focus is on the moving images arising from the 1960s up until the present age.

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Museum für Naturkunde Stiftung Schloß und Park Benrath

Address: Benrather Schloßallee 102, 40597 Düsseldorf, Germany

The Museum für Naturkunde Stiftung Schloß und Park Benrath is a museum located in Benrather Schloßallee 102, 40597 Düsseldorf, Germany. The museum is committed to showcasing the Lower Rhine Bay and the Niederbergisches Land’s natural history.

Such natural history includes the history of fishing in the Rhine, centurial changes in the Rhine, moor and health, the region’s fauna and flora, trees in the castle park, etc. It does make sense to say that the exhibition in this center tries to imitate the earth and life’s natural history.

Native birds cluster around the environment, singing in the castle park at electronically simulated dawn, especially the Benrath bird clock species. A special room in the center named “Blueprint of Life” is dedicated to the science and technology of DNA (which, in itself, is defined as the blueprint of life).

Here, visitors learn about DNA and how codons (three sets of amino acids) combine to form chains of themselves that make up the constituent of the DNA.

Further details are provided for the replication of the DNA. The study exhibition includes collections of thousand and seventy-four prepared birds and seventeen mammals.

Dr. P. Frey intended to gather as many species as possible, and the center’s environment had helped greatly in actualizing this. Josef Pallenberg’s animal sculptures can equally be found in the museum.

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