Wunderkammer

驚異の部屋 / 16th–18th century / Style / Exhibition Design

The early modern collection room heaped natural and man-made things, specimens and art, into one space without distinction. Its floor-to-ceiling density aimed at a model of the world, making it the ancestor of the museum and the origin of an aesthetics of collecting.

Wunderkammer — Ole Worm's museum 1655 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Ole Worm's museum 1655 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Wunderkammer — Domenico Remps, Cabinet of Curiosities, 1690s — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Domenico Remps, Cabinet of Curiosities, 1690s — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

At a glance

Visual cues

Accumulation to the ceiling
Nature and artifice mixed
Wonder before classification
A collector's universe

Best used for

Showing collections from unlike fields as one chain of surprises
Overwhelming a small room or shop through sheer density

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Dictionary entry

Type: Handwritten slips numbered only, with explanation moved to a separate booklet
Composition: Fill walls to the ceiling and put the strangest thing at eye height
Material: Dark wood shelving, glass jars, specimen boxes, points of light in darkness
Caution: Copying only the density while losing each object's provenance makes the room look like antique stock, and wonder sinks into decoration.
Further study: Ole Worm / the collections of Rudolf II / Wunderkammer restagings in contemporary art

Related entries

Salon Hang (サロン掛け)Same Exhibition Design lineage.Compare Wunderkammer and Salon Hang
Maximalism (マキシマリズム)Shared effects: Exhilaration / Play.Compare Wunderkammer and Maximalism

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