The object collection of the Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge is a collection with a cultural-historical perspective that examines the formal education, use and meaning of everyday objects (high design, anonymous design) from the living, working and leisure spheres of the 20th and 21st centuries. The core is formed by the object areas that document the history of the Deutscher Werkbund. The inventory includes a total of around 40,000 objects and sets of objects.

The collection works with tense relationships between Werkbund-specific products and mass-produced goods, one-off craft items and industrial products, objects from well-known designers and anonymous design, highly defined artistic designs and individually designed emergency products, functional, purist objects and “kitsch”, essentially honest objects and material and functional surrogates, branded goods and no-name products, natural and artificial objects. Series on the material, form and functional history of things in the 20th and 21st centuries complete this ensemble.