Mr. Toilet House and Nam June Paik

In April I spent two weeks in South Korea and a week in Japan. While there, I did what I always do while touristing — visited many museums. Some of them were forgettable, but many are worthy of a post, including these two that are thematically very different but, geographically, neighbors; they are both located in Suwon, about 20 miles south of Seoul. First up is the Toilet Museum (Haewoojae) also known as “Mr. Toilet House.”

The story behind Mr. Toilet House: Suwon’s late mayor Sim Jae-Duck was given the nickname “Mr. Toilet” for his passionate leadership of the “Toilet Culture Movement” to improve public toilets. In 1996 he started the Beautiful Toilet Culture Campaign, and the city declared its intent to build the most beautiful public toilets in the world (motivated also in part by the then-upcoming 2002 FIFA World Cup which they were to host). Mr. Toilet took things a bit further than merely creating government departments and task forces, however, when he rebuilt his own house in the shape of a toilet and named it Haewoojae, which means “a room where you can relieve your worries.” It features a central toilet room as the “core of living,” with transparent glass walls that turn opaque with the flip of a light switch. The house was completed in 2007, and upon Sim’s death in 2009, it was willed to the city of Suwon. The city then converted it into a museum and culture park.

The museum is small and has clear, simple graphics (nearly all with English translations) that earnestly convey information about the history and global spread of modern sanitation, and other toilet-related subjects. There are also lighthearted illustrations of poops and flies (including on the floor, used as a navigational device) and hilarious double entendres in the writing.

Outside, there is a culture park. A meandering path leads you past examples of toilets, used throughout Eastern and Western history, that give an understanding of how toilets have physically changed over time.

Next door you can visit the Haewoojae Culture Center for a birds-eye view of the Toilet Museum.

Our next stop in Suwon: the Nam June Paik Art Center. The Nam June Paik Art Center opened in 2008 and holds 248 pieces of video installations and drawings, mostly of Nam June Paik’s but also of other contemporary artists. The art center hosts changing exhibitions of Paik’s work, special exhibitions of contemporary artists, performances, events, and educational programs. It also houses Paik’s archives and a library, undertakes research, and publishes scholarly journals and monographs.

The art center changes exhibitions regularly; they use their Nam June Paik-focused exhibitions to focus on different aspects of his work. While I was there, the exhibition was called Point-Line-Plane-TV, which “explored Nam June Paik’s canvas including intermedia [sic] such as television, score, film, and video, in notion of flatness.”

On the mezzanine level is the Education Room, seen in the photos below; a quiet place to have a seat and read some tables about the artist’s life.

Upstairs was Imaginary Asia, a special exhibition of 23 pieces in the motion images genre. Many of the videos were projected onto large walls, with small bench nooks that could sit 2–3 people for viewing.

Like at Mr. Toilet House — and actually at many, many places I visited in South Korea — navigational cues and directions were applied directly to floors. In the Point-Line-Plane-TV exhibition as well they applied interpretive text to the floor. Interpretive text was in both Korean and English.

Outside, the curved glass exterior of the the art center is modeled on the form of a grand piano, a common motif in Paik’s work, and on the letter P. But that is only apparent when you look at the museum map — the actual experience from outside is simply of an impressive modernist building.

There is a small park just beside the museum — perfect for a rest after an afternoon’s museum visit — and nearby are the Gyeonggi Provincial Museum (which has limited English translations) and the Gyeonggi Children’s Museum.

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 24 May 2017.

Pointe-à-Callière: Crossroads, Building Montréal, Snow

My final post about the Montréal museums I saw during my visit to the city in September 2015 — see also the Insectarium, the Biodôme, and Lazy Love at the Biodôme — here’s a look back at Pointe-à-Callière, Montreal’s Archeology and History Complex.

The Pointe-à-Callière complex is built on archeological sites that span the city’s history. Exploring the museum is very interesting, and a lot of fun — you take passageways, bridges, and stairs over and through the archeological remains. Like the museum building itself, which was built on pilings to protect the site, exhibition elements tread lightly among the artifacts, and visitors are asked repeatedly via signage not to touch the remains. Like most places in Montréal, museum graphics are in French with English translations. I like the way the two languages are interwoven on the red lobby banner above.

The permanent exhibition in the basement, Crossroads Montréal, takes you through 1,000 years of the city’s remains, including the first Catholic cemetery (dating from 1643), and the foundation of the Royal Insurance Building (dating from 1861). Excavations continue and more exhibitions are planned to interpret what is unearthed. On the one hand: very cool premise, and very cool space to explore. On the other, I had trouble getting and keeping my bearings. Perhaps because the graphics didn’t hold my attention? The ruins themselves were more intriguing.

I would have liked more information directed at the museum “streakers” like myself: the people who move quickly through exhibitions, and only read titles and very selective [random] bits and pieces of labels. (On my best days, I can be a “stroller.”) Perhaps a printed guide map would have helped me to understand where I was within the museum and what I was looking at. Perhaps I should have taken a guided tour.

I did like the graphics’ integration into the museum’s building structure, particularly the ceilings, and the minimalist construction-site aesthetic of their structures. Artifact cases, too, were carefully integrated into the site.

Most graphics were rear-illuminated, which worked perfectly with the museum’s underground atmosphere.

Also below-ground is the Building Montréal exhibition, where you’ll find the museum’s archeological crypt. The photos below are of the vaulted stone tunnel built on the bed of the Saint-Pierre River. See what I mean about the museum being fun to explore?

Set into the floor of Building Montréal are more than a dozen dioramas that show the city at different points in time. I love this use of space, and the vantage point it gives visitors. (I wrote this post about exhibition flooring, seven years ago, and Bridget mentioned the Pointe-à-Callière in the comments. I finally saw it for myself!)

At the time, the museum also had a temporary exhibit on view called Snow, a fun look at winter culture in Canada. Notice the snowflakes cut from the apron fronts of reader rails!

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 25 March 2017.

Space for Life, part 2: Insectarium

Update: The Insectarium is being redesigned, and is scheduled to reopen in 2021.

The Insectarium was our second stop in Montréal’s natural museum complex, Espace Pour La Vie (“Space for Life”). It’s a fascinating and excellently-designed museum. Its exterior looks like a home for insects, almost like a bee hive:

The permanent exhibition is called We Are the Insects and it is predominately ... very green. Graphics are a mix of strikingly clean layouts and comic book-inspired illustrations.

Here’s the view down to the bulk of the exhibition:

Each of the glowing cubes is a display case. Specimens are pinned to a rear-lit graphic, around text and images arranged in a clean, gridular design. Each layout looked nicer than the last, so I'm going to share photos of many.

Some layouts have a sense of irreverence, like this one, with its marching ants:

The different accent colors and stylized illustrations indicated the habitats (e.g. tropical forests) for the specimens.

Throughout the exhibition there were terrariums with some live critters, and beneath some display cubes there were dioramas (faux terrariums, if you will).

There were wall displays, and plenty of interesting charts and diagrams. There were sections about insect lifestyles, diets, reproduction, and what people can do to protect endangered insects. The sheer number of displays could have made for a repetitive slog, but it did not feel that way at all — specimens were fascinating, text was succinct, and the layouts were visually varied while staying true to the design system.

Outside were additional exhibitions and a temporary interactive art installation. And then we were off to explore the Botanical Garden.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 15 March 2017.

Space for Life, part 1: Biodôme

Back in September 2015, I spent a handful of days in Montréal. I visited a few museums, but at the time, I only gave one temporary exhibition at the Biodôme brief mention on this blog. This happens all the time — I take photos everywhere I go, and then I just sit on them.… So let’s dust off those photos (or pretend it’s September 2015), and visit the Biodôme.

The Biodôme is part of a museum complex called Espace Pour La Vie (“Space for Life”) that also includes the Insectarium, Jardin botanique (botanical gardens), and Planétarium. You can buy combination admission tickets and pick which you would like to visit. The largest exhibition, and primary draw, within the Biodôme is Ecosystems of the Americas. (But don’t miss the Insectarium!) The Ecosystems exhibition is broken into four ecosystems conveyed by immersive landscaping, climate, and live vegetation and wildlife. For example — the air inside the Tropical Rainforest ecosystem is warm and muggy, while inside the Sub-Antarctic Islands ecosystem it is decidedly chilly.

Inside the Tropical Rainforest you walk through mature and secondary forests, and pass a waterfall, lake, river, cliffs, and caves. Graphics throughout are minimal, restricted to brief labels and occasional monitors. Like most places in Montréal, text is in French, with English translations.

Charming illustrations and species’ statuses are available in the free Identification Guide.

Inside the cave you’ll find terrarium-dwellers and nocturnal-types; these graphics were all rear-illuminated, and included a bit more information than graphics in the Rainforest:

Moving along, you reach the Laurentian Maple Forest. At the entrance to each ecosystem you are greeted by a large wall mural: a collage of color-saturated photos, clean-lined vector illustrations, and a where-in-the-world diagram.

Maintaining the minimal aesthetic throughout, there are still elements of whimsy, such as photos of playful otters applied to the glass wall of their enclosure. Wayfinding elements also show up on the floor, and on support columns.

Downstairs, there are a couple of small exhibitions: the Naturalia Room, which is directed toward children, and a temporary exhibition, which at the time was The Fossil Affair.

Overall, the Biodôme was a fun museum to visit, and the immersive ecosystems were well-done.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 14 March 2017.

California Academy of Sciences, part 2: color and quakes

If forced to choose, my favorite part of the California Academy of Sciences would be the Rainforest Dome — check out Part 1 of my visit — but there were many other fascinating exhibitions to enjoy, including Color of Life: Discover Nature's Secret Language, designed by the museum’s Exhibits Studio and opened last year.

The exhibition uses bright, bold colors, beautiful photographs, and accessible writing to “reveal the significant roles color plays across a spectrum of species.”

Within the 8,000 square foot exhibition are immersive interactive experiences, including a musical color visualizer, designed by Tellart. Video screens respond to strings, plucked by visitors, with a show of images and videos related to that string’s color.

Another popular interactive experience is the “Courtship Dance Stage.”

Throughout the exhibition are dioramas and small interactives that allow you to see organisms under different types of lighting, or through the eyes of other animals (just for example).

Also 8,000 square feet in size, the older (circa-2012) exhibition, Earthquake: Life of a Dynamic Planet, explores the seismic science of Earth’s geologic transformations through installations such as a 25-foot-wide, walk-through model of Earth, and the immersive “Shake House.”

Other sections of the Earthquake exhibit focus on the diverse life forms that evolved and spread as Pangaea split up, and earthquake preparedness.

There are mini-exhibits throughout the museum, including a show of Andy Warhol’s Endangered Species series of silkscreen prints, from 1983. In 2007 the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list; the other featured animals remain.

Other mini-exhibits focused on variation, in ladybugs and in humans. 

Rounding out my visit, I strolled through the Human Odyssey exhibition, an exploration of the origins of humankind, and the African Hall, home to classic, stuffy, stuffed-animal dioramas (and live penguins).

I highly recommend this museum — it’s beautifully designed, fascinating, and educational. I also recommend you consider picking up a City Pass if you plan to visit more than one museum. They are expensive in San Francisco — said from DC, where the museums are mostly free.

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 3 October 2016.

California Academy of Sciences, part 1: rainforests and reefs

I wrapped up June — oh, wow it’s August! — with a trip to Yosemite (happy birthday, National Park Service) and San Francisco, where I spent a day parade-watching and a couple days museum-going.

One museum that filled nearly an entire day was the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. Below is a photo of the museum’s exterior and its brilliant Living Roof, as seen from the de Young Museum.

There are so many exhibits within “the Academy” (and so many photos to show) that I’ve broken this post into two parts. Part 1 here covers the Aquarium on the lower level, designed by Thinc Design, and the Rainforest on Level 1.

After entering the museum I was swept up with the crowds heading to the 4-story, 90-foot-diameter Rainforest Dome. Inside, the rainforest visit begins on a Bornean forest floor, winds upward through a Madagascan mid-story and a Costa Rican canopy, then ends on the lower level in an Amazonian flooded forest.

As a designer, I liked the dome’s juxtaposition of glass and steel and abstracted jungle motifs against living flora and fauna, and the changing vistas as I moved further up the dome. As a nature enthusiast, I enjoyed its subject matter; as a weary museum visitor, I appreciated its delivery: not too much, not too little; brief, interesting, and useful.

The bright, straightforward graphics make use of vivid photographs, and the occasional illustration of an animal signals your arrival in a new area of the jungle. Bamboo- or vine-like vertical posts give a stylized–naturalistic element to exhibit tanks. The light touch with exhibit elements gives the rainforest dome a feeling of exploration and discovery (just ignore the school groups).

At the top of the dome, look out over the three stories you’ve just visited, and down, through a 100,000 gallon tank, to the flooded forest floor. Take an elevator down, then enter the tunnel you were just looking through from afar. Everyone says “oooh.”

The aquarium level felt jam-packed and massive; it’s where I spent most of my time during a 3 hour + visit. There were many exhibitions to see: Amazon Flooded Forest, Water Planet, California Coast, Coral Reefs of the World, Twilight Zone, and more.

Down here, animal identification is found on digital touchscreens. They were intuitive and fun to use, and had just the right amount of information: an animal’s common name, its scientific name, diet, and a one-sentence fact about it.

Below are some photos of the Water Planet exhibition, which groups underwater animals by adaptations. Projected blue and green lighting casts an underwater glow on the sculptural wave walls (similar material here). In the center of the room are curvilinear tanks. (I was reminded of the Van Cleef & Arpels traveling exhibition, circa 2012. It must be the bubbles.)

The highlight of the Coral Reefs of the World exhibition is the 25-foot deep Philippine Coral Reef tank (above). The exhibit graphics in this area are large image-based wallpapers.

The exhibition Twilight Zone: Deep Reefs Revealed had just opened on June 10. It’s memorable for its tanks filled with the most incredible jellies and vivid deep sea fishes.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 23 August 2016.

Weekend in NYC: the Cooper Hewitt, Jewish Museum, more

I went up to New York City a couple weekends ago. My time was packed with museum visits, including my first to the Tenement Museum, at 97 Orchard Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. I took their Shop Life tour. The museum’s sixty- and ninety-minute-long tours are docent-led through restored tenement apartments. Most tours focuses on one apartment, one period in time, and one actual family; the Shop Life tour is slightly different in that it highlights multiple families, across time periods, who lived and worked in the basement-level shops. I highly recommend the museum for an engrossing, educational experience. (Summertime hint: the Shop Life tour is the only one air-conditioned!)

From top left, clock-wise: volunteers pull weeds on the High Line; the entrance to the "Shop Life" tour at the Tenement Museum (no photos allowed inside!); Fly By Night at the Brooklyn Navy Yard; Goshka Macuga at the New Museum

I also stopped by the New Museum, since I was in the neighborhood for the Tenement Museum, and truth be told, I was mostly perplexed (I’m not that hip, apparently). I paid another visit to the High Line, which has expanded and its plantings matured since I was last there. And I saw a performance of Duke Riley’s Fly By Night, in which, “at dusk, a massive flock of pigeons … elegantly twirl, swoop, and glide above the East River.” The pigeons wear LED anklets and respond to whistles and waving flags, flying overhead as commanded. The performance pays homage to the mostly forgotten culture of pigeon keeping and — with just another week to go — is being held at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, once home to the country’s largest naval fleet of pigeon carriers. I loved it.

At the Met Breuer, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new home for modern and contemporary exhibitions (in the Whitney’s former building), I saw the exhibition Unfinished. There was nothing ground breaking in the actual exhibition design, but the premise was compelling and a lot of the artwork was fantastic.

And I took in the Nasreen Mohamedi retrospective. (Just closed, on June 5.) After the jam-packed Unfinished, the meditative exhibition was a welcome respite.

But hands down, my two favorite exhibits during this visit were at the Jewish Museum and the Cooper Hewitt.

At the Jewish Museum, I fell in love with Roberto Burle Marx. Burle Marx was a Brazilian artist who drew upon diverse cultural influences to reinvent the landscape architecture discipline. He incorporated abstracted, irregular forms, native plants (he was a passionate environmental advocate), and Brazilian modernism into his landscape designs. His work is incredible; visit this exhibition!

The exhibition design was spot-on, evoking the geometries and curves of Burle Marx’s landscapes and emphasizing the art on display. An interlocked massing of display cases in the center of the room dominated the exhibition space; an 87-foot-long tapestry (below, left), designed by Burle Marx for the Santo André Civic Center in 1969, provided a stunning focal point. His hand-drawn and painted landscape plans are wonderful to behold; some examples from the exhibition are shown below.

A few blocks north, Beauty, the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial was bustling. The wide-ranging contemporary design exhibition is a must-see for designers and artists.

The exhibition design was minimal, just the simplest of reader rails and small text panels. The museum encourages use of “pens” that allow you to interact with the digitized collection on touchscreen tables and to save objects from the exhibitions to be accessed later. A nice benefit of accessing your visit online is that for each object, museum curators have selected related objects for further exploration. For example, the online entry for Atmospheric Reentry, designed by Maiko Takeda (above, left), led me to this hat from Cameroon and this “hairy” garden pavilion.

Below is one of my favorite entries from the Beauty Triennial, Architecture is Everywhere, designed by Sou Fujimoto Architects. From the project description: “the project discovers architectural possibility in found objects and everyday materials. Simple artifacts such as a lottery ticket, an ashtray, or a ring of binder clips become intriguing structures when placed on pedestals with tiny human figures.” It was delightful.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 13 June 2016.

SEGD tour of National Museum of Health and Medicine

On Sunday I attended a tour of the very cool National Museum of Health and Medicine, now located in Silver Spring, Maryland. NMNH is a Department of Defense museum first established in 1862 as the Army Medical Museum, “a center for the collection of specimens for research in military medicine and surgery.”

The tour was organized by the Washington, DC chapter of SEGD (formerly the Society for Environmental Graphic Design, now the Society for Experiential Graphic Design) and led by members of the museum’s staff and the design team from Gallagher & Associates. (I used to be a designer at G&A.)

There was a crowd in attendance so we were split into two groups. My group was led by graphic designer Liza Rao (responsible for the museum’s fantastic colors and typography), and Andrea Schierkolk, NMHM’s public programs manager. It was a treat to hear reflections from both sides; what they love and what they love less; things that work great and things that didn't turn out as expected. It was also a treat to see some of my former colleagues.

The museum is divided into three major exhibits: Collection That Teaches (purple), Anatomy and Pathology (turquoise), and Advances in Military Medicine (brick red). Crisp white casework and glass shelves give the exhibit a “lab-like” look that I enjoyed, and the bold shots of color look great against the mostly tan, cream, and yellow objects on display — yes, most of those objects are corporeal remains. This museum is not for the sensitive of stomach.

The exhibits were designed precisely for the current objects on display, yet they are still changeable — graphics can be slid in and out as objects are rotated or stories are updated.

Thank you to our new DC SEGD chairs, Liza and Chris, for the great program — keep them coming, please!

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 16 March 2016.

My hazy memories of the Perot Museum

A few days ago I was talking with some colleagues about the Perot Museum of Nature and History in Dallas, Texas. Someone remembered one responsive interactive; I remembered a different one ... and then I remembered that I haven’t shared any photos from my visit (nearly a year ago).

The responsive interactive I remembered was located in the lobby. Models of water molecules danced up and down from the ceiling in response to the movements of people below. The molecule models were controlled by cameras in the ceiling that sensed movement and triggered motors that made them dance.

And that’s about where my specific memories break down. What I do remember is how large the museum is, with 11 permanent exhibit halls, and that the day I went it was JAM-PACKED.

There was something there for everyone though, even if it took a bit of maneuvering to get around and find it. I liked the dinosaur gallery:

And bits and pieces of other galleries, including the entrance to the Gems and Minerals Hall:

I was really taken with these benches sprinkled throughout the museum, with their cut-out factoids:

Overall, we were intrigued, learned some things, and had fun. (Just don’t ask me for details.)

I’ll wrap this post up with a photo I took of the roof. From the museum’s Wikipedia page: “It has a stone roof which features a landscape of drought-tolerant greenery inspired by Dallas surroundings. … Building on the museum’s commitment to resource conservation, the new building integrates a variety of sustainable strategies including a rainwater collection system that captures run-off water from the roof and parking lot, satisfying 74% of the museum’s non-potable water needs and 100% of its irrigation needs.”

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 20 March 2014.

FDR Museum, part 4: rear-lit and neon

Work shown was completed while I was a designer at Gallagher & Associates.

To wrap up my series on the design, fabrication, and installation of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Museum, a close look at the first exhibition gallery.

The first gallery sets the stage for FDR’s presidency: the Great Depression. The focal point here is the neon-illuminated “FEAR” wall. Text is silkscreened onto the glass panels and rear-illuminated with LED pads. The red color comes from the custom “UMEMPLOYED” neon letters; the mural image in the back is a black and white photographic print.

The FEAR letters are applied to the rear of the glass. I wanted them to be translucent — to allow the mural image to show through and create depth — and also be as richly black as possible. The fabricators, Explus, provided a variety of production samples to try to achieve the effect I was after. Printing the letters on a transparent film and applying it to the glass, in particular, was unacceptable as I wanted a uniform transparency (no streaks, no dots).

Explus created a self-adhering vinyl by applying Sentinel OptiClear Adhesive to the face of the gel sheet (Rosco Cinegel Neutral Density N.9 Gel Extra Wide) and die-cutting it. I was happy, but the fabricators had some difficulty with cutting and applying the gel sheets. Their graphics manager told me that if they were to do something like this again they would use a standard window tint that has the application adhesive already on it. Here’s the sample:

Turning to the wall opposite:

The background mural is printed on DreamScape, as I mentioned in a previous post. Most of the murals in this museum were applied to backers, framed, and cleat-hung to the wall, but this particular one was applied directly to the wall and its edges captured with flat aluminum strips.

The framed graphics are digital prints with an overlaminate, mounted to sign blank. They were applied onsite to an MDF backer panel and aluminum frame. (The backer and frame are screwed to the exhibit wall; the graphic is applied with VHB tape.) Explus welded the frames’ corners before painting them, and that made a huge difference in the appearance of them. They are nicely finished and high-quality.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 25 June 2013.

FDR Museum, part 3: almost done!

Work shown was completed while I was a designer at Gallagher & Associates.

I am back in Hyde Park — installation continues! The exhibits are quickly coming together as the opening nears. Most of the graphics are hung, dimensional letters have been pinned (there are a ton throughout the museum — I went dimensional-letter-happy), and the interactives are being field-tested. I think it all is looking great. Some photos of the A New Deal gallery:

Artifact cases are being filled:

It’s a papier-mâché FDR sphinx!

The World War II timeline is nearly complete (two weeks ago there wasn’t much hung besides the skeleton). What a bear that was to design!

I may have snuck into some New York Times photos while I was onsite. The critic and photographer were there, I was there ... who’s to say. We’ll see.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits and additional photos. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 24 June 2013.

FDR Museum, part 2: installation continues

Work shown was completed while I was a designer at Gallagher & Associates.

I was back onsite with the Gallagher team at the FDR Library this past week and took more photos of the exhibit installation. It’s exciting to see the various elements go up. The exhibits are dense and layered; it’s a big story to tell in a relatively small space. The exhibits are in the original — now renovated — library conceived by Roosevelt himself so we were restricted to the existing spaces while designing the new exhibits.

Most of the graphics still have a protective film layer and ID label on them. In other places there are backers awaiting graphics, brown paper-wrapped graphics sitting on the floor, and assorted construction detritus. But bit-by-bit it’s going up! And we all know that everything happens in the last week before opening anyway. ;)

Updated, to add a photo of the finished gallery, The Promise of Change:

Updated, to add a photo of the finished gallery, Foundations of a Public Life:

Below, left: These graphics will be installed into the WWII timeline, on the right side of the photo above. They are printed on Laserchrome, which I mentioned in my previous post — and they look incredible.

I also mentioned the DreamScape wallcovering; below is a shot of some installed murals. I think they look good. Once the text panels, dimensional titles, reader rails, etc. go up — it will look great. More, soon!

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits and additional photos. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 16 June 2013.

FDR Museum, part 1: under construction and opening soon

Work shown was completed while I was a designer at Gallagher & Associates.

For the past couple of years I’ve been working on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, in Hyde Park, New York and (holy cow) the public opening is less than a month away. With time dwindling, I am finally sharing some process photos: production samples, shop visits, and installation.

The library has been posting photos of the installation on their tumblr. (2021 update: their tumblr is still going strong!) The photo below comes from there; I grabbed it to highlight the graphic in the background. There are four of these structures throughout the museum, one for each of FDR’s elections.

The “election stats” graphics are silkscreened onto Acrylite P-95 with white vinyl film adhered to the second surface. Silkscreening on P-95 creates a subtle shadow, which at certain angles makes the text appear dimensional. (For this reason, it should also be done with caution.) Here’s a photo of the sample provided by Explus, the fabricator (the installed graphic above is waiting for its red dimensional stars to be attached):

Below, the main story panels, used in the World War II gallery, which I am especially happy with:

They’re built from 5/8" clear acrylic, which has been painted on the front surface with acrylic paint, with a “window” left free of paint. The text is printed onto the painted acrylic surface, and then the photo — a Laserchrome metallic print — is adhered to the second surface of the acrylic, within the window area.

The photo above gives you a sense of the depth and jewel box effect created by layering the photo behind the acrylic. And here’s a peek at the backside of the pane. The aluminum angle frames are painted with Matthews acrylic polyurethane paint:

For wall murals I spec’ed DreamScape wallcoverings in various finishes. Above is another photo from the FDR blog, showing a few installed murals (currently missing their dimensional titles, and the scaffolding structure that will be located in front). I’m pleased with the crisp image quality, especially on the rough textures, such as “Plaster” (below, on the left) and “Mystical” (on the right).

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 3 June 2013.

Changing Earth, at the Franklin Institute

Changing Earth at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia is about land, air, and water, and how these have changed and continue to change on our planet. There’s a lot happening in this exhibit and it was sometimes overstimulating, but overall it was nicely designed with clear ”take-home” messages and memorable interactive experiences.

The designers, Adirondack Studios, used environmentally-sensitive materials throughout the exhibit. From the museum’s website: “Changing Earth is constructed of sustainable materials. The flooring is made from recycled content and post-consumer waste products. All wood is Forest Stewardship Council certified or bamboo. All metal is recyclable. Paint is low-VOC and graphics are printed on recycled material using water-based inks.”

I visited this exhibit about a year ago, not too long after it opened (and wrote this post about the exhibit, Electricity, which had opened at the same time). My memories of the details are a little fuzzy I’m afraid, but both exhibits are still on view if you’d like to see them in person.

The centerpiece of the exhibit was a giant Earth dome (photo above) which housed an introductory film.

The exhibit was full of interactives and touchable displays, such as a stream table, weather forecast station, and earthquake simulator.

Below is an example of the direct-to-substrate printing used throughout the exhibit.

Post updated in January 2021 with text and photo edits. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 4 April 2012.

Electricity, at the Franklin Institute

Electricity at The Franklin Institute is about “the wonders of electricity … this interactive exhibit dedicated to the Museum’s namesake, Benjamin Franklin” serves up historical artifacts, cute diagrams ...

… and plenty of techy interactives. The exhibit promises, “Learn how electricity is created and explore the fuel sources needed to generate our electricity. You’ll feel the force of electricity by manipulating electrical phenomena, exploring authentic artifacts … and tackling questions of sustainable energy.” Below, a touch screen to explore Ben Franklin's book Experiments and Observations on Electricity:

The “Electrical Signals” wall: use your phone and it responds with flashing LEDs. It was a lot of fun.

There were group interactives and experiments, and a “sustainable dance floor” which was a blast for all. The exhibit is ongoing.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 16 January 2011.

Old Faithful Visitor Education Center (Happy Holidays)

Work shown was completed while I was a designer at Christopher Chadbourne & Associates.

This vintage Yellowstone ornament, a gift from my dad, holds extra significance because of my work on the design of the Old Faithful Visitor Education Center in Wyoming. The Education Center held its Dedication Ceremony and Grand Re-Opening earlier this year, on August 25.

The Old Faithful Visitor Education Center teaches the science behind Yellowstone National Park’s stunning hydrothermal and geological features.

As part of the Christopher Chadbourne & Associates design team, I worked on Design Development, and the Production Services phase. Ernesto Mendoza was the senior graphic designer.

Here’s a project description at SEGD that goes into detail about the design considerations and process, and an article from inhabitat with more photographs.

(The good photographs (i.e. those to the left and below, and the three at the bottom of this post) are by Jay Rosenblatt.)

I took on a lead design role for the Yellowstone is a Natural Laboratory area, and developed the visual concept, inspired by scientists’ gridded field notebooks. The entire exhibit, and this area in particular, used many interactive elements to explain complicated scientific concepts in an accessible way.

Here’s an elevation of the Norris Geyser Basin section (the graphic design was tweaked after this):

And because it’s fun to look back, here are some photos from a shop visit at Pacific Studio. It’s always exciting to see designs mocked up like this. (Not as exciting as the final exhibit, of course!) We used a lot of direct print on frosted P95 acrylic, and digital prints applied to sign blank (wrapped with an overlam), for graphic panels.

Post updated in January 2021. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 26 December 2010.

Build Boston 2011: Touring the MFA

GUEST POST

Writing and photography by Katelyn Mayfield, an exhibit designer at Christopher Chadbourne & Associates. She has a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. In her spare time, she makes handstitched books.

After a private tour of the Museum of Fine Art Boston’s new Art of the Americas wing, given by architect Adi Toledano of CBT Architects, I now feel certain that Boston has a world class museum. The tour was given prior to the wing’s grand opening as part of Build Boston. We got up close and personal with the details since almost no one was around, except security guards and last minute glass case cleaners.

My first response in the galleries was to the artifact display cases. These cases were undeniably eye-catching, like no other. The glass was crystal clear, completely devoid of prints of any kind. When standing on one side of a case, I could see perfectly through it and into cases beyond because of the impeccable clarity. The sleekness of the cases also succeeds in hiding complex mechanics, as described in this article. All 200 cases in the new wing were designed, manufactured, and assembled in Milan, Italy by Goppion Museum Workshop before they were shipped to Boston for installation. Goppion has also created display systems for the Mona Lisa at the Louvre and the Crown Jewels of England, among others, so high quality craftsmanship is a given. And once I got past the perfection of the cases, the artifacts inside were not so bad themselves!

Sir Norman Foster along with Foster + Partners was the Design Architect and creative masterminds of the new wing. Our guide, Adi, kept repeating, “Foster wanted ‘everything to line up’”, meaning everything had to be flush. Foster gets what Foster wants. He was knighted in 1990 and won the Pritzker Architecture Prize for his entire portfolio in 1999, the most prestigious international prize awarded in the field of architecture. He was also awarded the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 1994. I think he is worthy of dictating every detail, as he did in this project. No detail was overlooked and all components work harmoniously. It was the responsibility of CBT, the local architect of record, to design the actual details that accomplished this harmony. For me, highlights were the “landscape corridor,” the day-lighting strategies, and the details that made “everything line up.”

The landscape corridor is a thoughtful nod to the existing museum structure and the outdoors. Between the original building and the new building, a narrow 6' space is left full of vegetation. While in the main courtyard, which has two elevations of three-story-high glass walls, the corridors are visible on either side. The natural light, the view of the vegetation and the sky beyond, and the height of the ceiling makes this space feel like an actual outdoor courtyard. The landscape corridor is also visible when crossing over the enclosed bridges from the new wing to other wings. It really is a nice sight.

The main concept of the day-lighting strategy is based on indirect light. It’s seemingly simple; very successful. Because all four floors of the wing open onto small glass vestibules which open to the stairways, and then to the courtyard, all four floors have indirect natural light access. Sunlight is obviously harmful to artwork and artifacts, but otherwise a welcome source of light. The solution to safely utilizing this indirect light was to diffuse it through two layers of glass.

This idea that “everything must line up” is showcased in every aspect of the architecture; from the construction of the walls, to the lighting in the ceiling, to the emergency exit signs. The wall surface uses the skim coat plaster technique that is superior to average drywall. It is labor intensive — thick coats of plaster are applied to an expanded wire lath — however, it provides better durability and ease of replacing single spots of wall if necessary.

Even the smallest components, the exit signs, were meticulously executed. In the auditorium, which is covered in wood paneling, a sign protruding perpendicularly from the wall would not do at all. Instead, the letters E-X-I-T were cut into the wood and green light shines through from behind. Apparently this small project in itself was not easily accomplished. It took much compromise and discussion from the Boston Fire Department. The outcome is sleek and yes, “lined up.”

Then there is the door to the bathroom hallway. So well done! The door has no molding, no knob, no latch; it’s a push door, double swing, that extends all the way to the ceiling, with just a 1/4" gap between.

I also have to mention the graphics. The explanatory texts were short and sweet, subtle yet still noticeable. I appreciated the subdued graphics and simple 1" deep panels painted the same color as the wall. This created a different visual plane to draw your attention, but allowed the artwork and artifacts to take the lead. Within the cases, small numbers on tiny frosted pieces of glass show you which artifact matches up with which label below. In any case, go see the Boston MFA’s new wing. It is elegant, modern, and simply beautiful.

Post updated in January 2021. Broken links have been fixed or replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 1 December 2010.

New England Habitats

At the Museum of Science, Boston they’ve quietly redesigned the graphics in their New England Habitats exhibit. Direct print on solid wood, matte varnish. Nice!

Apparently, there are gremlins painted into some of the diorama backdrops. (From the link above: “Artist Francis Lee Jaques, famous for his ability to blend background paintings seamlessly with three-dimensional foregrounds, painted many of these along with several other Museum dioramas. When he was on lunch break, Jaques’ wife sometimes snuck into the hall and painted little, hidden gremlins into his backgrounds. Look for her handiwork in the Crane Beach diorama!”) I never noticed this, but now must go to the museum to confirm….

Post updated in January 2021. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 10 October 2010.

Field Trip Day!

Last week a few of my Chadbourne colleagues and I took a day to visit some local museums in Cambridge.

Nothing I haven’t already covered here on TED, but it’s always nice to see old friends. First stop: the Harvard Museum of Natural History/Peabody Museum of Archeology & Ethnology. They had a new, small but interesting exhibit, Headgear: The Natural History of Horns and Antlers (left and center, below) and they seem to be continuing the renovation work begun in the Great Mammal Hall. I peeked behind a drawn curtain to see what the deal was, but was stopped by this guy on the right:

I’ve written in the past about the HMNH, but I can’t resist adding a few more photos here. Slowly but surely the museums seem to be getting cleaner and brighter.

We then made our way over to the Harvard Art Museums, currently housed in the Sackler Museum, and previously seen on The Exhibit Designer, here.

We ended the day at the MIT Museum where, because of our tired feet and the heat of the day, we plunked down on a bench and became entirely engrossed in a video of Alan Alda swimming with a robotic tuna. (No really, I’m not kidding about the tuna. The video is from the episode “Natural Born Robots” of the PBS show Scientific American Frontiers.) Previous MIT Museum coverage here.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 30 September 2010.

Angularity at Denver Art

The Denver Art Museum’s new (c. 2006) Hamilton Building will make you do the Angle Dance, guaranteed.

Not one of the building’s planes — floor, wall, or ceiling — is parallel or perpendicular to another. Consider that for a moment.

Studio Libeskind’s design is meant to evoke “the peaks of the Rocky Mountains and geometric rock crystals found in the foothills near Denver,” an idea the exhibit designers ran with. Suspend your disbelief and peaks and rock crystals can be found everywhere — in the artwork hung directly onto skewed walls and the sculptures tucked into odd spaces where acute and obtuse walls meet.

You don’t actually have to suspend your disbelief to appreciate the angularity brought to aspects of the exhibit design, such as the display cases in the gallery of African art.

I’m not crazy about the light fixtures — they’re big and distracting! — but otherwise, the cases are intriguing and beautifully highlight the artwork and objects on display.

The dimensional letters used for gallery names are pretty incredible. The letters’ faces are perpendicular to the floor, and the depth, top-to-bottom, varies to meet the angle of the wall. I love the beautiful shapes and the shadows they create.

As for the art itself, I was surprised to find that I enjoyed the gallery of post-1900 Western American art (it’s not a genre I’d usually leap to explore). I also liked this installation by Sandy Skoglund.

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 20 May 2010.