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Kunsthalle Mannheim
Visitor Orientation System

Mannheim now has a new art hall. With the new build­ing, gmp, von Gerkan, Marg and Part­ners Ar­chi­tects re­alised the ar­chi­tec­tural idea of a “city within a city”. In anal­ogy to the space-form­ing el­e­ments of the city – house and block, street and square – var­ied tours through closed and open spaces with al­ter­nat­ing views are cre­ated for the vis­i­tors. Moni­teurs was com­mis­sioned for the ana­logue and dig­i­tal vis­i­tor guid­ance sys­tem and for the ini­tial graphic equip­ment of the ex­hi­bi­tions in co­op­er­a­tion with Axel Ku­fus / OH Stu­dio, re­spon­si­ble for in­te­rior de­sign. In terms of de­sign, the ori­en­ta­tion sys­tem fits into the ar­chi­tec­ture of the Kun­sthalle, thereby sig­nif­i­cantly sup­port­ing the iden­tity of the build­ing and car­ry­ing it nat­u­rally into the very last cor­ner of the build­ing.

Kun­sthalle Mannheim

Vis­i­tor Ori­en­ta­tion Sys­tem

Mannheim 2017/​18

Client

Stiftung Kun­sthalle Mannheim

Area

17,366 sqm

Pho­tos

Ste­fan Schilling

Award

Eu­ro­pean De­sign Awards 2019, gold

Based on the architecture, we have developed several decisive design features: big but not too big; easy to read; directly on the wall, not on a support; framed – pure, clear, direct. The architectural grid is adapted to a unit suitable for the wayfinding system and serves as the basis for arrangement and order. This imaginary grid holds the graphic information steady. It can also be found again on the facade in the mesh, a transparent metallic texture. The mesh that characterises the entire building is the first thing the visitor sees from the museum, and from there we take the mesh into the museum.

Lev­els are in­di­cated nu­mer­i­cally for in­ter­na­tional clar­ity.

Di­rec­tion and des­ti­na­tion mark­ings ap­plied di­rectly to the wall with paint stand in de­lib­er­ate con­trast to the framed art. Thus, the wayfind­ing sys­tem be­comes one with the ar­chi­tec­ture and in­te­rior de­sign.

Moni­teurs de­signed the dig­i­tal in­ter­faces that show mu­seum vis­i­tors the level overview, cur­rent ex­hi­bi­tions, their lo­ca­tion and cur­rent events, al­ter­nat­ing be­tween Ger­man and Eng­lish.

The mono­spaced font used for the sig­nage sys­tem, with uni­form spaces be­tween char­ac­ters, takes up the imag­i­nary grid of the ar­chi­tec­ture. It is there­fore very suit­able for this ori­en­ta­tion sys­tem. Fur­ther­more, it is very easy to read.

The ar­row de­rived from the logo is ground break­ing.

The pic­tograms de­signed for the Kun­sthalle take on the char­ac­ter of the writ­ing of the ori­en­ta­tion sys­tem.

E Signage, Culture, Identity
Related:
Kulturpalast Dresden
Ori­en­ta­tion Sys­tem
Deutsches Museum
Wayfinding System