Description
MUSEUM - A THEATRICAL SPACE
Christof Cremer for MAMUZ
task
As part of the preparations for the Lower Austrian Provincial Exhibition "Bread and Wine" in 2013, the top floor of Asparn/Zaya Castle was extended. The last two years were used to reposition the regional collection of prehistory and early history and to conceive the new presentation on the three floors of the castle. The umbrella brand MAMUZ, which unites the Prehistory Museum Lower Austria Asparn/Zaya and the Museum Lebenswelt Weinviertel in the Museum Centre Mistelbach, was created. MAMUZ - The new adventure museum and knowledge centre for prehistory, early history and medieval archaeology. Thus the former collection presentation is extended from prehistory to the High Middle Ages. An enrichment in the truest sense of the word is the presentation of the so-called treasure of Wiener Neustadt. Matthias Pacher, managing director of MAMUZ, approached me and my team with the task of transforming Schloss Asparn/Zaya into an artistically designed museum with an implemented exhibition.
A costume and stage designer designs a museum
Museums in the form meant here are theatrical places in the best sense. History and stories are told in the theatre and museum. They are places of presentation and representation. The task of a stage designer, just like that of a room designer, is to translate content into forms and thus create narrative spaces. On the stage, singers, actors or dancers are the main actors; in the museum it is the exhibits. Performers and exhibition objects want to and must be put in the right light! The rooms are there to provide them with the desired aura or to support them in such a way that they can develop their own aura, so that the game between object and viewer can begin, the objects can tell their story and the viewer leaves the museum enriched.
comprehension
A creative process always begins with understanding: Understanding the content, the background, the objectives of the client. Understanding is preceded by a long phase of listening and reading. Curators and scientists present their concepts and knowledge. They provide material for the deepening of knowledge. They tell the stories behind the objects and make history come alive in their descriptions. In countless sessions, narrative threads are shown, epochs and their peculiarities are explained, individual objects or finds are presented and crash courses are held, so to speak, for the designer. Listening, explaining, asking questions, explaining again - finally understanding. Only what I understand can I translate into interior design. Designing space means translating content into spatial forms.
Design guidelines
On the basis of the specifications of the client and the curators, content and design guidelines were jointly developed. Asparn/Zaya Castle is a historic building. During the tour the visitor should feel again and again that he is in one of them, rooms of historical significance should remain as free as possible of architectural fixtures. It was decided to present thematically arranged, exemplary, narrative objects - however always placed in the context of the respective find complex - and thus to stage a show of the greatest highlights of the state collection. This is because the basic design approach - in contrast to the usual pure showcase museums - provides for a staged museum. The task of the design is to offer the visitor new associations through the interior design. This is intended to enable emotional experience beyond the purely cognitive perception of the exhibits.
The design translates themes into forms and spaces, contents are illustrated - but not reconstructed - and thus become new and more intensely experienceable and tangible for the viewer. The design has no end in itself, but a serving function, it serves the objects and contents to be mediated. The decision for a low-tech museum was made deliberately. Part of the exhibition concept is to reduce direct design and multimedia elements to the bare essentials. True to the motto: Museum is real experienced history, a real place with real objects that does not take place in cyberspace. In the MAMUZ Castle Asparn/Zaya multimedia elements are used as artistic means of design and - where necessary - for the clarification and deepening of knowledge.
executed by theatre painters, printed surfaces
were used almost exclusively for texts.
With this guideline, too, we are accommodating the concept of "real" design. If possible, all motifs of the creative graphics were developed from the surfaces of the exhibition exhibits. Each floor houses milestones in history and each exhibition room is dedicated to its own theme. The themes of the individual rooms were developed by studio exhibit and lead almost chronologically through the millennia. Visitors are immersed in an ever-changing world as they walk through the rooms and are invited to experience all the themes with as many senses as possible.
Each castle its treasure
What better place to put a treasure trove than a castle? As a kind of morning gift for the new constellation, the Province of Lower Austria has entrusted Schloss Asparn/Zaya with the so-called treasure trove of Wiener Neustadt for presentation! This medieval find consists of vessels, rings and garment clasps. What is jewellery? Glamour: and glamour must be presented in a glamorous setting. Two objectives were pursued in the design of these special areas: a modern presentation of valuable pieces of jewellery and immersion in a medieval world of images. The darkened rooms are characterised by black and gold and create an aura of majesty and nobility. The windows are lavishly covered with black and white voile, the overlength reminds of the drapery of medieval robes. The walls are decorated with thematically related scenes in gold, inspired by medieval book illumination.
And it does come true
Countless, endlessly long meetings with the scientists, the core team, the client, the executing architects and tradesmen were followed - accompanied by tenacious wrestling - by meetings about possible savings. Slowly the feeling sets in: It never ends. The achievement of a designer does not only consist in a creative idea. It takes perseverance, assertiveness and patience to accompany, improve and protect the idea until it is realized. When the designer stands on the construction site and sees how the imaginary rooms become reality after two years of planning, there are moments of joy.
final
Thus the museum no longer "belongs" to us, who thought, planned and built it over two years, but to you - the visitors - who go on a search for traces of the history of mankind, the history of Lower Austria and especially of your own history. We as designers hope to have built the right bridges for this! Have fun discovering with as many senses as possible!
