TYPO3 Powers Seamless Content Management for Deutsches Museum Munich’s Digital Exhibits

The Deutsches Museum Munich (DMM) in Southern Germany is one of the world’s largest science and technology museums. With 66,000 square meters of exhibition space, it’s considered a key player in the global dialogue between science and society, receiving almost 1.5 million visitors in 2023 alone. 

Amidst a major renovation running through to 2028, DMM aims to modernize its digital services across 19 exhibitions. To achieve this goal, the company recognized the need for a versatile and scalable digital platform. DMM put out a Europe-wide tender, and stipulated TYPO3 as the required solution due to the open-source CMS’s flexibility and extensibility. Dresden-based digital agency XIMA was awarded the contract to implement the project.

With features like a customizable backend, headless CMS capabilities, and automated deployment workflows, TYPO3 enabled XIMA to craft a tailored solution for DMM. The new TYPO3-powered system allows curators to save significant time and effort by easily updating content on media stations without technical support.

XIMA leveraged TYPO3’s powerful content management capabilities to centralize all of DMM’s digital exhibit content, including texts, images, graphics, videos, audio files, 360° recordings, interactive games, and multimedia.

Using TYPO3’s intuitive backend, museum staff can now easily create, edit and publish content for approximately 260 media stations across various exhibitions. These stations include interactive touchscreen information and video kiosks, audio guide stations, multimedia game stations, motion-activated acoustic installations, tactile orientation systems, and large-scale projections.

Editors can structure content using TYPO3’s flexible page tree, with each media station having its own page and URL. They can maintain relevant metadata like exhibition area and station type in page properties. A custom TYPO3 extension manages the delivery of content from the CMS to media stations.

To ensure a stable and future-proof platform, XIMA designed a robust architecture using TYPO3 version 10.4 LTS. The setup includes a preview environment to test changes before pushing to production, automated deployments through GitLab CI workflows, asynchronous content updates to media stations, and offline content availability at stations.

This setup allows the museum’s IT staff to easily initialize and deploy new media stations, with content served through TYPO3’s REST API. The architecture ensures maximum uptime and seamless content updates for an uninterrupted visitor experience.

XIMA’s TYPO3 solution has empowered DMM to efficiently manage and deliver content to its diverse array of media stations. By centralizing content management through TYPO3, DMM has significantly streamlined its workflows and reduced reliance on external support. This has resulted in substantial time and cost savings for the museum.

Looking ahead, the scalable TYPO3 architecture sets a strong foundation for DMM’s ongoing renovation. The museum plans to enhance the visitor experience further by rolling out new features like personalized content, wayfinding, and more. With TYPO3’s flexibility and XIMA’s expertise, DMM is well-positioned to continue innovating its digital offerings.

TYPO3’s extensive capabilities and vibrant community make it a top choice for complex, large-scale projects like DMM’s multi-phase renovation. Coupled with an experienced partner like XIMA, TYPO3 can be adapted to tackle unique challenges while providing a user-friendly interface for non-technical content managers.