Gutenberg Museum — Attraction in Mainz

Inspiring museum explaining one of the greatest technological advancements in human history!

The museum is located in the city center, easily accessible by foot and the entrance fee 5€ seems more than reasonable for a museum of such importance. Audio guide with headphones was available for an additional 3.5€ for which I had to use ID as a deposit. The pamphlets with a map of the museum with a short description of each section were free of charge, but it was not really helpful nor informative to me at all. All facilities including a nice gift shop, restrooms and locker room were located at the ground floor, as well as the cinema. The staff in the museum was rather dull, but helpful when needed.

I started my tour following the audio guide which was perfectly narrated (with a nice and soothing voice), but it was obviously outdated as some objects being described were not where they were supposed to be. The same goes for an English video I watched in the cinema, it was more than 10 years old. The 25-minute long tour showed me the highlight of Guttenberg's discovery - the movable type printing - as it explained each individual part, the printing machines and of course the most important items in the museum, the Guttenberg bibles. They are located in a vault with very dim light, constantly monitored and guarded as they are precious and only few of these in the world still exist. I must say the books are impressive, considering they were printed nearly 600 years ago. They are generally considered the most beautiful printed books in the world thanks to their unique artwork. Unfortunately pictures are not allowed to be taken inside the vault.

There were additional 5 audio tours worth taking. It was quite simple to find their beginnings as the stickers on the floor and signs on the cabinets helped a lot to navigate. Workshops and shows (only in German) were happening around the museum at certain times and visitors were informed with the sound system, either by chime or by voice, when and where they started, which was very helpful.

The lighting in the museum was very specific, which I understand given the age of some of the books, however the positioning of the lights was very wrong almost everywhere. It was extremely difficult to take a picture without my own shadow, let alone appreciate the object or read its description. At first it didn't bother me, but with time it got annoying.

As for the provided explanations the museum is really not consistent - most of information were available only in German, some were bi-lingual (e.i. in the Asian section, the Korean part was only in German, however the Islamic part was bilingual and also narrated), others offering audio tours and some that as non German speaker I could not enjoy all (I wanted to visit the history of newspaper section, but the provided description was only German and no audio guide was available). The audio tour of the history of bookbinding was very fascinating, located on the highest floor.

Overall I did spend more than two hours here learning about the life of Johannes Guttenberg and his printing machines and despite the museum not being perfect I did enjoy my time here.

Visited in...

Came here yesterday, on a warm August Saturday afternoon, with my husband and three kids ages 6, 4, and 2. The museum is a large rectangle, with several floors that have an elevator in the middle, enabling us to continue using our stroller (which was good as one of our kids was napping in it). I found the entrance difficult to find, as the Gutenberg complex is quite large, but eventually we found it and purchased our tickets (only 5 euros each for the two of us adults, and the kids were free as they were under 7) and made our way to the top floor and worked our way down. The 2 year old made this trip VERY difficult, as she just wanted to run around and touch EVERYTHING, most of which they're not allowed to touch. My 6 year old really enjoyed herself, as they had lots of things to look at for kids (books, devices, pictures, etc). The bathrooms were on the first floor and were large and clean. There was a printing demonstration at the top of the hour, which was quite crowded for us but I think because of an Italian tour group that was there the same time we were. Despite rushing through the museum as fst as we could, we were there about 2 hours and enjoyed it as well as we could have in the circumstances. I especially loved the gift shop, and got a wax seal stamper with our last initial on it and a quill; they had a lot of books and other neat things for kids and adults alike. Definitely a great destination for history, book, lover, and geography lovers, even if you have kids, though you're better off if any toddlers are worn so you don't have to worry about them getting into trouble. There are staff members on each floor to answer question and to make sure your kid doesn't get into any trouble haha. About half of the signs have German and English. There also was an audio...

The very first impression was the employee, who ran after me and blocked me to use the toilet before I buy the ticket. It is insane, I have never expected such a medieval absurd in the german museum. He also told me that it is not a public toilet, but the toilet itself does not look good. If these people so strict about using the toilet, they should at least take care about cleanness and so on. This time there was no soap at all, for example.

After visiting the museum I asked for guestbook. Aunt on the cashier seven times reasked me what I mean and then said that they do not have any. "Website", she told me. Bloody website of this museum, like many in Germany, is from early 2000s. And the email in the contact section is corrupted. If you will try to copy it, you will lost "@" symbol and the dot before domain zone. Geniusly done, I can say as a web-developer.

What about the museum itself, it is pretty interesting, but there is no info how these devices work. Nothing. You can just stare at them and that's, basically, it. I tried to check some info in internet, but obviously there is no signal in the building, and there is no WiFi.

The only positive thing is fair price - 5 EUR, and it was possible to pay with card.

I would like to see some...