Silver Interior Space and Exhibition Design · 2025
Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart Exhibition, Museum and Gallery
- A' Design Award 2025 Silver Winner in Interior Space and Exhibition Design
- Awarded April 15, 2025
- CLIENT: Ralph Appelbaum Associates
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 26,377
- Verification code 7FFE779E56 · Verify this award
About Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart Exhibition, Museum and Gallery
Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart is an exhibition design for two central halls of a natural history museum in Stuttgart, Germany. Both halls are dedicated to evolution and biodiversity. In the Evolution Hall, six thematic islands with large historic specimens are arranged around a central multimedia table. The Ocean Hall is bathed in blue light and organized by marine habitats, from sea shores to the deep sea. A cutaway model of a sei whale carries a video projection. Daylight from the former courtyards is filtered and colored.
The Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart Exhibition by Ralph Appelbaum Associates represents a distinguished achievement in contemporary museum design, demonstrating how exhibition architecture can transcend mere display function to become an interpretive medium in itself. This installation positions itself within the distinguished lineage of immersive natural history presentation, where environmental design serves pedagogical and emotional engagement equally. The luminous graphic canopy, perhaps the most striking formal innovation, transforms the overhead plane into an evocative suggestion of primordial forest or perhaps aquatic depths, its variegated greens and ambers creating what might be understood as a chromatic meditation on the natural world the specimens below once inhabited. The structural supports, rendered in dark steel with deliberate organic branching geometry, establish a poetic dialogue between engineered precision and natural growth patterns, suggesting the evolutionary principles that unite all displayed specimens. The exhibition demonstrates remarkable compositional sophistication in its balance of monumental focal specimens and intimate detail presentation, with the mammoth and whale elements creating dramatic vertical accents that reward both distant appreciation and close examination. The integration of contemporary intervention within the classical architectural shell appears to honor institutional heritage while asserting contemporary interpretive ambition, a negotiation of temporal layers that enriches visitor experience. White angular plinths provide neutral grounds for specimen appreciation while their faceted geometry introduces subtle formal interest that prevents monotony across extended viewing. The central axial organization with its luminous azure terminus creates clear wayfinding while suggesting narrative journey through evolutionary time. One might observe how the warm accent lighting models specimens with almost reverential attention, transforming scientific objects into aesthetic experiences. The installation invites consideration of how design might bridge the vast temporal distances between contemporary visitors and the ancient life forms preserved within these collections.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart re-opened its two central exhibition halls dedicated to the overarching themes of evolution and biodiversity. In Evolution Creates Diversity, six thematic islands with spectacular specimens radiate around a central media table where visitors explore evolutionary concepts, while Immersion in Diversity immerses visitors in a captivating underwater environment exploring the topic of marine biodiversity.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 660 square metres
- Tags
- Natural History, Environment, Biodiversity, Science, Museum, Gallery
- Production Technology
- The design approach leverages the power of the building’s former courtyard spaces as iconic day-lit halls, and re-utilizes the Museum’s large historic specimens in dramatic new presentation within an immersive scenographic setting filled with intuitive interactive learning tools for exploring complex scientific concepts. The atmosphere of each of the two halls is very different, but each corresponds with the interpretive goals of the museum. The Ocean Hall is completely bathed in dynamic blue light and enables immersion in diverse marine ecosystems. In the Evolution Hall, with a green glowing forest canopy, radially-arranged pedestals and polygonal showcases with carefully poised specimens capture the attention of the visitors. Each island focuses on one aspect of the evolution, and features specimens, information graphics, and digital and analog interactives. A large-scale multimedia table at the center allows groups and individuals to gather and interact in a game-like setting.
When designing the media, care was taken to use the media elements in a very targeted and limited way. The two main media productions are the video projection on the cutaway model of the Sei Whale, which brings new life and purpose to an existing historical attraction. The other main media production is a game to help explain the processes of evolution. Both form the centerpieces of each gallery, but the media production itself does not visually dominate the overall experience. - Design Challenge
- Biodiversity and evolution are fundamentally important topics for a modern understanding of the world and its many lifeforms. The exhibition aims to no longer present the topics in a textbook-like, instructive manner, but to become more engaging and transparent in the expression of their impact and interrelations. The new exhibitions are conceived in the spirit of public understanding of science, where not only Results and Truths are presented, but Ways and Processes of gaining scientific knowledge are demonstrated. This is especially important with regard to expressing the importance of natural history collections for current and historic research.
- Project Duration
- This project started in March 2021 and opened to the public on February 17, 2023 at Schloss Rosenstein in Stuttgart, Germany.
- Operation Flow
- The design of the Ocean Hall and the Evolution Hall aims to create a stunning spectacle that stirs the imagination and feelings of wonder and awe. Each room delivers an immediate visual impression and can be experienced as a ‘big idea’ before diving into secondary and tertiary levels of content.
The Ocean Hall as an experiential space which primarily explores diversity and ecosystems. Designed as a space to explore and discover, the hall is organized by habitats, from sea shores to shallow reefs, to the open waters of the oceans and into the depths of the deep-sea bottom. Along the way, information is conveyed through traditional graphics, as well as models, touchable objects, and digital and analog interactives. At the center of the room, the iconic Sei Whale with a projected multimedia show narrates how a single creature’s biology and lifecycle relates to the entire ecosystem or marine life.
On the other hand, the Evolution Hall places the focus on the myriad of factors influencing evolutionary processes. Evolution itself is explained in the simplest terms via a media-based game at the center. Each topic 'island' is part of a larger whole, but has its own interpretive messaging structure. In addition to the primary text, further information is conveyed in the form of analog and digital interactives, interactive information graphics, and hands-on objects. - Inspiration
- Once courtyards of the castle, both exhibition halls were formerly outdoor spaces, filled with natural light and connected to the surrounding environment. Instead of blocking the natural light we embraced it, filtered and colored it to create a dynamic and immersive scenography of light. The Ocean Hall is dominated by a cutaway model of a sei whale, and the Evolution Hall by a large-scale taxidermy of an African elephant bull and European forest elephant.
- Image Credits
- Image #1: Photographer Daniel Stauch, Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History, 2023.
Image #2: Photographer Daniel Stauch, Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History, 2023.
Image #3: Photographer Daniel Stauch, Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History, 2023.
Image #4: Photographer Daniel Stauch, Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History, 2023.
Image #5: Photographer Daniel Stauch, Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History, 2023.
Colors of Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart Exhibition, Museum and Gallery
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