© Nysos Vasilopoulos
Weekend Tips: What to Do This Weekend in Berlin
January 23 to 25, 2026: Events, festivals, exhibitions and more things to do for your perfect weekend in Berlin. more
Inventing-Mania!
The Sailing Airship of the “Engineer von Tarden”
Fotografie Ingenieur von Tarden mit Modell
© Institut für Geschichte der Medizin und Ethik in der Medizin, Charité (IGM-K-HPAC 3086-1908)
Erfindungswahn verlängert – Erfindungswahn verlängert
© @BMM
The exhibition begins with a medical file from the Charité archive. It unfolds the story of a patient who was admitted to the psychiatric clinic in 1909. There, he worked tirelessly on his invention of a sailing airship, which was not only intended to help him overcome the wall of psychiatry. He wanted to be remembered as the “Engineer von Tarden”.
His story takes us back to a time when zeppelin euphoria was at its peak, the first airship was flying in the skies over Berlin and psychiatry was using the term “inventing-mania” as a diagnosis that also described a collective social condition. As a still young academic discipline, it struggled with the definition of clinical pictures to define its subject: the human psyche.
The exhibition reveals the interweaving of psychiatry, the individual and society, exposing its constructions and projections. It opens up a variety of resonating spaces with a spatial installation by the Mahony Collective, a literary story by Teresa Präauer and a reconstruction of the sailing airship by Bernd-Michael Weisheit.
His story takes us back to a time when zeppelin euphoria was at its peak, the first airship was flying in the skies over Berlin and psychiatry was using the term “inventing-mania” as a diagnosis that also described a collective social condition. As a still young academic discipline, it struggled with the definition of clinical pictures to define its subject: the human psyche.
The exhibition reveals the interweaving of psychiatry, the individual and society, exposing its constructions and projections. It opens up a variety of resonating spaces with a spatial installation by the Mahony Collective, a literary story by Teresa Präauer and a reconstruction of the sailing airship by Bernd-Michael Weisheit.
Runtime: Fri, 07/03/2025 to Sun, 19/04/2026
Price: €10.00
Reduced price: €5.00
Reduced price info: The following persons are entitled to a reduced admission fee upon presentation of the relevant proof of eligibility:
- Pupils, students, trainees, persons doing voluntary service
- Pensioners
- People with disabilities (from GdB 50)
- People who receive transfer benefits (S-Ticket, unemployment benefit, citizen's benefit or benefits regulated by the Asylum-Seekers' Benefits Act)
- Charité employees with the corresponding ID cardMuseums Pass
- Members of Freundeskreis der Charité
- Stationary patients
Free admission:
- Holders of the Museumsbund or ICOM card
- Holders of a press card
- Members of the Friends of the Museum
- Students and apprentices of Charité
- Persons accompanying disabled persons (registered in disabled persons official certificate)
Reduced price: €5.00
Reduced price info: The following persons are entitled to a reduced admission fee upon presentation of the relevant proof of eligibility:
- Pupils, students, trainees, persons doing voluntary service
- Pensioners
- People with disabilities (from GdB 50)
- People who receive transfer benefits (S-Ticket, unemployment benefit, citizen's benefit or benefits regulated by the Asylum-Seekers' Benefits Act)
- Charité employees with the corresponding ID cardMuseums Pass
- Members of Freundeskreis der Charité
- Stationary patients
Free admission:
- Holders of the Museumsbund or ICOM card
- Holders of a press card
- Members of the Friends of the Museum
- Students and apprentices of Charité
- Persons accompanying disabled persons (registered in disabled persons official certificate)
Takes place here:
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