Museum of Natural History Berlin (2007)
ART+COM had the overall direction for the redesign of four exhibition halls in the Museum of Natural History Berlin and the New Media. Interactive installations run through the exhibition like a red thread, offering a playful and detailed access to the museum’s wealth of knowledge.
In the biggest hall of the area, visitors will find the „World in the upper Jurassic“ with seven big dinosaur skeletons and the original of Archaeopteryx lithographica. This is the location of seven Jurascopes, allowing visitors to take a glimpse into the Jurassic period. Looking through these medially augmented telescopes, the skeletons grow muscles and skin, then they are relocated to their natural habitat and begin to move in it.
In the following hall „System Earth“, processes that formed our planet’s appearance and still do so, are in the focus. The centre of this hall is a globe of three meters diameter. A large-scale screen moves around the globe and provides films with first information on the hall’s different themes like vulcanism, speciation or plate tectonics.
A sofa in the staircase on “Solar system and Cosmos” is the vehicle for the visitors’ journey through time and space with film and sound. A big round projection screen has its starting position at the highest point of the staircase and, beginning with the Big Bang, will start slowly descending towards the visitor. The screen’s return journey starts on our earth and goes via the moon, the solar system and the Milky Way to the deeps of the universe.
The main theme in the last new hall is “Explore Evolution”. The interactive genealogcial tree table by ART+COM allows just this. On the genealogical tree, visitors can choose from questions popping up. These are related to different families of animals or single species. When a visitor touches a question, an answer appears not only in textual form but also with photos on the theme.
Dynamic Legends are the recurring medial tool in all the exhibition halls. They present detailed information on the exhibits with texts and diagrams. Visitors can interactively choose images, films and animations on related themes running on integrated screens.
show project details
Client
Museum of Natural History Berlin
Services
- Development of basic concept Overall concept of exhibition
- Development of staging concepts for media installations
- Staging planning
- Media design
- Application programming
- Interface design and interface construction
- General technical planning and realisation
- Audio planning
- composition and realisation
- Installation
- Creation and evaluation of tender documents
- Evaluation of allocation
- Monitoring of construction
- Project management
Technology
- 1 interactive installation with table projection and synchronized real-time application (1 PC, 2 HD projectors)
- 5 Jurascopes (media telescope) for playing animations
- 2 barrier-free interfaces for playing content on 40" screens
- 1 cinematic staging on movable screen (3 meter diameter) with 1 SXGA projector
- 1 barrier-free station for planetary sounds and cinematic staging in staircase
- 1 movable screen
- 8 sound installations (Talking Heads and Planetary Sounds)
- 22 Dynamic Legends
- 1 4-line LED wall
Special features
- Financed with EFRE and Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie funds, total of 17.7 Mio. Euros
- Main Contractor Exhibition and New Media Design: ART+COM
- Exhibition Design: Bertron & Schwarz
- Project Management and Planning: Schiel Projektgesellschaft
- Scientific Monitoring: Ausstellungsbüro Joerges
- Contents: Museum of Natural History Berlin
- Architecture: Diener & Diener
- pecialized planners light: Dinnebier Licht; Delux Lichtdesign