Wonder Rooms 2.0
Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag (NL)
client
Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag
location
Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag (NL)
completion
2013
surface
1200 m2
status
permanent
Just like the original display in 2005, Kossmann.dejong exhibition architects has provided the concept and design for the entirely refurbished Wonderkamers [Wonder rooms] at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag [Municipal Museum The Hague]. At the time, Wonder Rooms was the first Dutch museum for teenagers and was set to let them encounter visual art, architecture, fashion, and craft and design in a surprising way.
The new display is the result of three years of intense collaboration with a multidisciplinary team of educators, game designers, media specialists, film-maker and stage-set, lighting and sound designers. The objectives have remained the same: young and old can experience in a playful way how art can surprise and enrich us. What is new is that interactivity plays an integral part. Visitors are invited to play the ‘museum game’ and will design their own virtual rooms in the Miniature Museum.
wonder game
The refurbished Wonder Rooms have been designed as a physical and virtual three-dimensional game in which the visitors are given the lead as exhibitions makers. The floor plan of Wonder Rooms, which comprises thirteen rooms around a central art depot and a Miniature Museum at its core, changes during the game into a an interactive spatial board game. Like real curators, the participants will be tested on their knowledge, creativity, and alertness.
You can play the museum game in teams, as a family or as an individual visitor. Using a specially developed tablet (the Wonder guide) you can navigate through the Wonder Rooms in which the game is being played. Every room has been designed around a different theme. You can, for instance, dance the Boogie Woogie together with Mondrian, take part in a fashion show, build a museum building like Berlage did, zoom in on details of paintings, learn how to determine the value of artworks, try and make an abstract composition, learn everything there is to know about craft techniques and learn how to recognize schools and movements in painting and interior design. The better you do do the tests, the more points you gather, and the more artworks you collect for your own virtual room in the Miniature Museum.
miniature museum
At the heart of Wonder Rooms lies the Miniature Museum, with some 200 rooms, in which hundreds of original miniature artworks by top artists from across the world are exhibited (from the Ria en Lex Daniëls collection). At the end of the game you can design one of the virtual mini museum rooms for this Miniature Museum. To conclude your visit, your museum room will be officially inaugurated and you will be able to call yourself a curator. You can ‘like’ rooms by other visitors. A visit to the Wonder Rooms lasts about 2 hours, and is free for visitors up to 18.
credits
concept, content, spatial design, graphic design, creative direction: Kossmann.dejong exhibition architects
interactives: Kiss the Frog
Wondergids interface: Kiss the Frog and Kossmann.dejong exhibition architects
AV and lighting design: Rapenburg Plaza
film: Tungsten
build: Kloosterboer Decor
Pepper’s ghost: Dutch Igloo
content: Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and Kossmann.dejong exhibition architects
prijzen
Shortlisted - Children in Museums Award - 2015
Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement - 2014
Highly Commended - Museums + Heritage Awards, cat. International - 2014
Shortlisted - Design Week Awards 2014 - 2014
Nominated - Herengracht Industrie Prijs - 2014
Honorable Mention - IDA International Design Awards 2013 - 2014
Honorable Mention - MuseumNext Award for Innovation - 2014
Finalist Cinekid Leeuw, cat. Best New Media Production - 2014
Winner - International Design and Communication Awards, cat. Best Scenography for a Perma - 2014
Winner - Dutch Game Award, cat. Best Applied Game Design - 2014
