--- title: "The Kaiserpanorama" date: 2024-08-28 last_modified: 2025-09-22T08:08:05+02:00 generated_at: 2026-05-14T09:30:10Z url: "https://www.stadtmuseum.de/en/article/the-kaiserpanorama" description: "A century before 3D televisions and virtual reality appeared on the scene, a Berlin invention offered people an immersive experience of distant places and current events at affordable prices." image: "https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/August_Fuhrmann-Kaiserpanorama_1880-gemeinfrei-bearbeitet-1.jpg" language: "en-US" --- # The Kaiserpanorama August Fuhrmann's imperial panorama, illustration from 1880 Illustration: public domain ![Zeichnung eines Kaiserpanoramas. Rings herum sitzen Menschen auf Stühlen und blicken durch die Okulare hinein.](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/August_Fuhrmann-Kaiserpanorama_1880-gemeinfrei-bearbeitet-1-300x193.jpg) **A century before 3D televisions and virtual reality appeared on the scene, a Berlin invention offered people an immersive experience of distant places and current events at affordable prices.** An almost round wooden structure measuring several metres across with a stool or chair in front of each set of brass eyepieces: the so-called Kaiserpanorama enabled the automatic presentation of three-dimensional photographs at the turn of the 20th century. It was a mass medium during the German Empire that many people remembered fondly well after its heyday. In his book *Berlin Childhood around 1900*, philosopher Walter Benjamin, who was born and raised in Berlin, described a noise that was like the ‘ringing of a little bell’ which sounded each time Kaiserpanorama switched from one imagine to another, guiding viewers through a series of ‘distant worlds’. ![Zwei Männer und ein Pferdefuhrwerk auf einer Straße mit Tramgleisen vor Gründerzeit-Gebäuden und Litfaß-Säule](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/stereoskopie-berliner-strassenszene-1-300x157.jpg) Stereoscopic image of a Berlin street scene, composed of two individual images photographed slightly offset horizontally. © Stadtmuseum Berlin The three-dimensional images were recorded by ‘two-eyed’ cameras. This process, known as stereoscopy, is based on human spatial perception: the brain combines two slightly horizontally offset images to create a single three-dimensional view. ## A crowd-pleaser at the Kaisergalerie ![Eingang zur Kaisergalerie an der Friedrichstraße, Ecke Behrenstraße, um 1880](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kaisergalerie-friedrichsstrasse-behrenstrasse-1-300x225.jpg) Entrance to the Kaisergalerie on the corner of Friedrichstraße and Behrenstraße, around 1880. © Stadtmuseum Berlin | Photo: F. Albert Schwartz ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kaisergalerie-innen-1-213x300.jpg) Interior view of the Kaisergalerie, around 1875 © Stadtmuseum Berlin | Photo: Lindau & Borchardt ![Eingang zur Kaisergalerie, Unter den Linden 22/23, um 1880](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kaisergalerie-unter-den-linden-1-300x246.jpg) Entrance to the Kaisergalerie, Unter den Linden 22/23, around 1880 © Stadtmuseum Berlin | Photo: F. Albert Schwartz ## Crowd puller in the centre of Berlin The Kaiserpanorama was invented by physicist, inventor and businessman August Fuhrmann (1844 - 1925). Born in Breslau, Silesia (now Wrocław, Poland), he opened his first Kaiserpanorama in 1883 in Berlin’s then popular Kaisergalerie shopping centre, located between Friedrichstraße (on the corner of Behrenstraße) and the boulevard Unter den Linden, an ideal location for such an attraction. Fuhrmann’s Kaiserpanorama offered up to 25 people at a time a fascinating ‘exclusive experience’ through the optical illusion of stereo photography. For 20 pfennigs admission, viewers could follow the cultural, sporting and political events in the German Empire with a weekly changing series of 50 pictures each, or peer into distant cities and landscapes. Fuhrmann’s advert described his invention as follows: “The Kaiserpanorama solves the problem of making the world known to the world”. ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kaisergalerie-unter-den-linden-eingang-1-300x195.jpg) Entrance to the Kaisergalerie on the boulevard Unter den Linden 22/23, around 1910, through the archway into the shopping arcade in which the Kaisergalerie was located. © Stadtmuseum Berlin | Photo: unknown photographer ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/unter-den-linden-luftbild-1-300x214.jpg) The boulevard Unter den Linden in the ‘Weltpanoramazentrale’ Berlin in an aerial photograph from 1913/14, with the ‘Kaisergalerie’ clearly visible in the foreground on the left. © Stadtmuseum Berlin | Photo: Aero Lloyd Luftbild GmbH ### An early mass medium In an early form of photojournalism, August Fuhrmann soon supplied up to 250 branches in Europe and overseas with stereoscopic images from his Berlin-based ‘World Panorama Centre’. It was a genuine mass medium intended not only for the wealthy and educated sections of the population, but for all of society. Its distribution was therefore widespread: in 1909, 100,000 prints of 3D images were already in circulation. The Berlin Stock Exchange (in the background the towers of St Mary's Church and the Red Town Hall, in the foreground the colonnades of Museum Island) in a coloured stereoscopic photograph, around 1900 © Stadtmuseum Berlin ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/berlin-boerse-stereoskopie-1-300x151.jpg) Around 1900, with colour photography still in its infancy, black and white images were elaborately coloured by hand. August Fuhrmann had developed and patented a special process that made his black-and-white stereo images glow in colours that appeared natural. ### ‘A first-class art institute’ Fuhrmann’s company, which employed up to eight photographers, was commercially successful thanks to its founder’s skilful advertising and sales strategy and was known as a ‘first class art institute’. However, stereoscopy was ultimately no match for competition from the new medium of film. People lost interest in the still, silent images as they began flocking to the cinemas, which were often magnificent film palaces. The Kaiserpanorama in Berlin’s Kaisergalerie nonetheless remained open until 1939. ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/titania-palast-steglitz-300x220.jpg) Compared to the new medium of film and the often magnificent cinemas (here the Titania-Palast in Steglitz, 1928), the imperial panorama quickly lost importance in the first decades of the 20th century. © Stadtmuseum Berlin | Photo: Nationalfilm Lichtspiele AG ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kaiserpanorama-berlin-global-300x200.jpg) Functional replica of an imperial panorama in the room Entertainment of the BERLIN GLOBAL exhibition at the Humboldt Forum. © Stadtmuseum Berlin | Photo: Alexander Rentsch ### Experience the Kaiserpanorama live The Stadtmuseum Berlin has an original Kaiserpanorama in its collection. It comes from a Dutch branch of the ‘Weltpanoramazentrale’ and is the only one of its kind in Berlin. Acquired in 1983, it was in operation in the Märkisches Museum until 2019. Since 2021, an exact, functional replica can be experienced in the ‘Entertainment’ room of the BERLN GLOBAL exhibition at the Humboldt Forum. At the 2015 museum festival, visitors to the Märkisches Museum had the opportunity to watch the series of paintings in the Kaiserpanorama being changed and take a look behind the scenes of the original apparatus. ![]() ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kaiserpanorama-stereoskopie-02.jpg) A stereoscopic image before insertion into the imperial panorama. ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kaiserpanorama-stereoskopie-03.jpg) In the light, the details of the stereoscopic image can also be recognised with the naked eye. ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kaiserpanorama-stereoskopie-01.jpg) A visitor gets an explanation of how the Kaiserpanorama works. ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kaiserpanorama-stereoskopie-08.jpg) The original imperial panorama in the Märkisches Museum, 2015 ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kaiserpanorama-stereoskopie-07.jpg) The external panelling is removed. ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kaiserpanorama-stereoskopie-06.jpg) Labels are visible on the inside of the outer panelling. ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kaiserpanorama-stereoskopie-04.jpg) View inside the Kaiserpanorama. ![](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BerlinGlobal-392-300x200.jpg) Für eine Überraschung gut: die begehbare Diskokugel im Raum Vergnügen. ### BERLIN GLOBAL BERLIN GLOBAL shows on 4,000 square meters in the Humboldt Forum how the city and its people are connected to the world. [ Get your ticket now!](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/en/exhibition/berlin-global) Editional Editing: Heiko Noack - [ ![Heinrich Zille in Hut undMantel mit Zigarre im Mund auf einer handsignierten Postkarte, 1915 ](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/heinrich-zille-192x300.jpg) Berlin personalities ](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/en/topic/berlin-personalities) - [ ![Die Waisenbrücke im Jahr 1908 mit dem neu eröffneten Märkischen Museum und dem 1902 errichteten Kaufhaus Neu-Kölln mit seinem markanten, schlossartigen Wasserturm](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/waisenbruecke-maerkisches-museum-1908-300x219.jpeg) Berlin places ](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/en/topic/berlin-places) - [ ![Mechanische Musikinstrumente im Märkischen Museum, im Hintergrund das Orchestrion „Fratihymnia“ ](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/mechanische-musikinstrumente-maerkisches-museum_0-300x200.jpg) Berlin sounds ](https://www.stadtmuseum.de/en/topic/berlin-sounds)