Searching for Tinkering: Murmiland in Hannover

This past weekend I traveled to Hannover, Germany to visit the popular Murmiland exhibition of wooden marble machines created over the past four decades by local artist Ortwin Grüttner. The night we arrived in town, we learned that sadly, the show had to shut down at short notice because of pollutant materials detected at the community center host site.

Upon hearing this news though, Ortwin kindly invited us over to his home and workshop to see some of the marble runs that were not installed at the exhibition. I wanted to highlight these amazing creations and share his inspiring spirit of tinkering.

auThe house was impossible to miss with the brightly colored Murmiland van in the driveway that’s used for transporting the materials for temporary exhibitions and school visits. There were even several marble runs built into the entry way of the house. Ortwin has filled a couple rooms with historical models, working machines and table top designs. As we came into the space we were transported into a delightful marble filled tinkering environment.

The marble machines vary a great deal both in size and complexity. Some place the focus more on the story elements and some have more complex mechanisms or electronics embedded within the designs. All in all Ortwin has built about 90 machines since he started in 1989 and makes sure to build at least one per year.

While the machines all have different themes and pathways, Ortwin has developed a pretty unique technique for building the marble runs that connects all the designs. He uses layers of thick wooden boards, cutting our the grooves for the marbles using a router or mill. Each board is sandwiched on top of the next and the machines are built from the bottom up. He said that (in true tinkering fashion) he often doesn’t know exactly how the machine will turn out when he starts but instead he lets the materials guide the process.

I really appreciated all of the different levels of experimentation for the ball release, types of ramps, release mechanisms and technology. Some had randomizing devices, levers that only released when the filled with enough marbles, elevators and even one with a stop watch built into the machine triggers by physical movements.

The volcano marble run shaped like a mountain with flowing lava really fascinated me with its combination of story and technical elements. There’s a nice hand-cranked “elevator” on the bottom that sends the marbles up through the machine and back out of the top where they start back flowing down with the addition of a red LED.

We also gravitated to a couple of table top machines with playful themes. The first was a fairly straightforward track going through a snail shell that had an ingenious release point through the mouth of the critter. Another one was shaped like block of cheese and as the ball traveled through the contraption little mice poked their heads out of the holes.

As we walked around the room we noticed a series of paintings showing marbles in different fantasy settings. These images and along with the diverse collection of machines starts to connect to other artists that I’m interested in like Thomas Dambo who makes giant wooden trolls or Theo Jansen who creates Strandbeests out of PVC tubes. In each of these artists’ works there starts to be mythological story connecting all of the projects together.

And it was great to see little touches that connected to other tinkering projects, like this machine with a little blue tit that pops out of a birdhouse when the marble rolled through. This one also featured a little latched door that you could open to see the linkage powered element in action. These machines spark new ideas about the intersection between marble machines and automata.

After the tour we also took a look downstairs at the workshop where there were a couple machines in progress. I always love seeing the collection of tools and materials that different artists collect to fit with their style and creations. And seeing a couple new machines that were in progress gives a great behind the scenes look at how they are made.

It was too bad that Ortwin had to cancel the exhibition due to factors out of his control, especially since the marble runs were proving to be so popular with kids and families. I know that for now it’s possible to see a few of his machines at the toy museum in Soltau and on tour at local schools and events. Hopefully they will be back better than ever in 2028 at the local community center. I would love to find more ways to collaborate with Murmiland to show the high ceilings of marble machine construction alongside activities where kids can tinker and their own versions on pegboard or chairs. Its always inspiring to see how beautiful and complex tinkering themes and projects can get when artists and makers spend many years experimenting and playing with materials.