Design Museum Denmark / Spacon & X

Design Museum Denmark / Spacon & X

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Text description provided by the architects. In 2021, Spacon & X was commissioned to create the exhibition design for two of the coming four exhibition areas. Designmuseum Danmark chose in 2019 to close its doors and start a major renovation and redevelopment in order to secure the future of the museum’s framework in their listed historic building. The reopening of the museum is part of manifesting the Danish design legacy, in a modernized take.

Through close dialogue, Spacon & X sought to explore the encounter and contrast between the classic and the contemporary. In such collaboration, we have strived to find a balance between disruptive contemporary innovations that pay a tribute to the classical. The location of Designmuseum Danmark and its magnificent spaces are full of history, character, and self-explanatory confidence. Against this, we sought to create an exhibition design that is forward-thinking and experimental. The innovative approach aims to celebrate the diversity of the exhibition while maintaining respect for the cultural and classical institution as well as paying tribute to the expressive rooms.

Spacon & X as a design and architecture studio develops spatial identities in a boundary-pushing yet respectful manner. The cross-disciplinary studio has throughout the process included a variety of ways of thinking and working with design across scales and disciplines. The primary approach has been to work with spatial organization and zoning through innovative and sustainable materials. Keywords that have guided the design have been a presence, emotional awakening, honesty, and playfulness which inspire a sense of creative freedom.

‘’We want to take the visitor by the hand, and guide them through explorations of creative boundaries, with a drive and approach to continuous questioning and enhancing as well as inspiring a perception of creative freedom in the future’’ – Nikoline Dyrup Carlsen, Founding Partner at Spacon & X’’

The main exhibition that Spacon & X has designed is called ‘’The Future is Present’’, curated by … Pernille Stockmarr. The exhibition itself will present what the design of the future may be and what alternatives it can offer. The exhibition has been curated with a diverse set of art pieces that ask more questions than it provides precise answers, with an ambition to make visitors wonder and reflect on what kind of future they want.

Spacon & X designed the exhibition with a sense of future optimism while addressing coming design challenges in a way that balances the unexpected with some more well-known elements, allowing the visitor to be able to relate to the future. However, to ensure that the perception of the future and the uncertainty it brings, there are surprises throughout the journey of the two exhibitions including narratives across scales.

The materials chosen are primarily from a vast range of local Danish firms providing sustainable materials. The materiality of the exhibition is carefully chosen including a variety of textiles, lighting techniques, and diverse textures in layers and through transitions. Primarily, materials were sourced and used to take a stand on the future, and expose choices and surfaces so that they tell a story about their creation, character, and function. “We believe that honest and raw designs invite the visitor inside, opening the design process choices as part of the inspiration for the rich and creative opportunities of what the future is, and that design plays a role in this.”