Grimmwelt Kassel

Most people know the Brothers Grimm as collectors of fairy tales. In Kassel you also meet them as linguists who launched a vast project, the German Dictionary. Grimmwelt Kassel tells both stories in a playful way: the exhibition is divided into 25 sections, each named after a word from the German Dictionary, from Ä for “Ärschlein” (little bottom) to Z for “Zettel” (slip of paper). Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm lived in Kassel for many years, and the exhibition covers this chapter of their lives too.

History: from palace to new building on the Weinberg

Until 2014 the Brothers Grimm Museum was housed in the Palais Bellevue. Turning the historic building into a modern museum would have required major alterations, so the city opted for a new building on the Weinberg hill, close to the Hessian State Museum. The Aachen firm kadawittfeldarchitektur won the design competition. During construction in 2014, household items belonging to the Henschel family came to light; their villa here had been destroyed in the Second World War.

Grimmwelt opened on 4 September 2015 after two years of building, at a cost of €20 million. 15,000 people came on the first weekend alone. That same year the British newspaper The Guardian named it one of the ten best new museums in the world. In 2017 it was one of the venues of documenta 14.

What to see

• Treasury: Here are the Grimms' personal copies of the Children's and Household Tales from 1812 and 1815, with handwritten notes by the brothers. They are part of UNESCO's Memory of the World register, along with a collection of foreign-language editions.
• Fairy-tale rooms: Four artist-designed rooms of 125 m² each. You enter the world of fairy tales through a thorn hedge; a multi-screen cinema shows clips from fairy-tale films, and there is a talking mirror and an insult funnel.
• Hands-on dictionary: 330 m² are devoted to the German Dictionary. At games and experiment stations you try out how the Grimms organised the vast vocabulary of German.
• The brothers' lives: Their biography in their own words, plus furniture, crockery and household goods from their estate.
• Holzwurzel: A work by the artist Ai Weiwei is part of the fairy-tale section.
• The roof: The 2,000 m² roof is freely accessible via open staircases and offers wide views over Kassel.

Good to know

Grimmwelt explicitly calls itself an “exhibition house” rather than a museum. The permanent exhibition is on the two lower floors, and the upper floor hosts temporary shows. Until April 2027 it features “Zwischen Gestalten”, the first major solo exhibition on the artist Helga Gebert and her fairy-tale pictures. The ground-floor café-restaurant is called “Falada”, after the talking horse in the tale “The Goose Girl”.

Visiting and timing

Allow one and a half to two hours for the permanent exhibition, a little more with the temporary show and the roof. Children will love the fairy-tale rooms, while adults may find the dictionary and biography sections more rewarding. There is an audio guide and regular public overview tours. The building has lifts, and the roof can also be reached by lift.

Tickets and opening hours (as of October 2026)

• Tuesday to Sunday: 10:00–18:00, closed Mondays
• Public holidays: open on Hessian public holidays; New Year's Eve 10:00–14:00, closed on Christmas Eve and New Year's Day
• Admission including temporary exhibition: adults €10, reduced €7, families €25
• Temporary exhibition only: adults €5, reduced €3, families €12
• Annual pass: €35, reduced €25, families €85

Location and nearby

Grimmwelt stands on the Weinberg in Kassel, close to the Hessian State Museum and the Museum of Sepulchral Culture, so several museums fit into one day. With more time, add the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe with its Hercules monument.