Located in a former workshop-building, the museum is organised as "open storage" in which visitors can investigate the museal setup of the collection on about 500 square meters. In the permanent exhibition, objects are grouped into sample-collections. These show on one hand the basics of the polarising Werkbund-objectives, basic aspects of material-, shape-, function- and use-history of things within the 20th century and contemporary material culture on the other hand. The exhibited objects are presented in juxtaposition with one another: objects by renowned designers juxtaposed with anonymous designs, artisan pieces with industrial objects, artistic designs with homemade wartime products, functional, “pure” objects with so-called “aesthetic aberrations” or “kitsch”, “honest” objects made of precious material with skeuomorphs, products of the Deutsche Werkbund with mass-produced wares, and brand name objects with generic ones.
The special character and the unusual structure of the collection goes along with the development of a special exhibition-type in the Werkbundarchiv - Museum der Dinge, the so called "open storage". The collections presented in the form of an "open storage" is permanently questioned, further developed and commented.
