Permanent exhibition
CLIENT:
Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen Schloss Gottorf
DIMENSION: 500 m2
COMPLETION: 2016
Cast Iron Museum
Büdelsdorf
Finely crafted jewellery pieces made out of humble iron instead of gold? In the early 19th century it was considered “statement jewellery”– for wearers of such pieces were signalling they had replaced their gold jewellery with it to help finance the Napoleonic liberation wars.
All the other things it is possible to produce from cast iron (apart from the pots, pans and ovens still commonly used today) have been on show since July 2016 in a new exhibition staged within the Cast Iron Museum in Büdelsdorf/Schleswig Holstein. This museum, which is housed in an architecturally appealing 1950s pavilion with otherwise no relationship to the subject matter, was fundamentally redesigned by us. Working in close consultation with a small curatorial and liaison team, we came up with an artistically and factually coherent concept to place the objects in theme contexts like the world of Greek Antiquity or Hunting and thus inject new life into the almost forgotten art of iron casting. The connecting thread of the exhibition is the “iron river” – a band of red acrylic which runs across the walls, ceiling and floors of all the rooms as an abstract representation of liquid iron ore, thus anchoring the objects in place and simultaneously providing information to the visitor. Scenographic elements strategically placing various themes and objects within a dramatic sequence shape the visitor experience, which remains fascinating from start to finish, due to the ever-changing impressions and challenges encountered along the way.