Atelier Brückner awarded red dot: grand prix

As part of this year’s “red dot award: communication design”, Atelier Brückner received a “red dot: grand prix” prize for the outstanding design of the permanent exhibition “Tatort Forscherlabor” (crime research laboratory), which was thereby recognised as one of the best entries in the internationally renowned design competition.

The exhibition is on permanent display at the archaeology museum Westfälisches Museum für Archäologie in Herne. In the “research laboratory”, visitors are able to re-enact the methods used by scientists in crime investigations to analyse and decode clues from the past in order to reconstruct historical events. All of the methods are explained by means of concrete examples contained in 14 themed display boxes.

Working under the motto “form follows content”, Atelier Brückner takes a subject and then designs and creates spaces which spirit the visitor away on a journey which is based around a central idea. For company manager Professor Uwe R. Brückner, who teaches at the art college Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst in Basel and has achieved international success as the initiator of interdisciplinary design studies for spatial and scenographic design, the idea of a red dot design award has gone up in his estimation: “Personally I have never been particularly interested in awards. However, I do find the idea of a red dot award for a scenographic project particularly attractive if it rewards a complex spatial design which would not have happened had it not been for multidisciplinarity – this is a trend which deserves to be supported.”

Professor Brückner spoke to red dot about his experiences as a designer and about the importance of his field of studies:

Professor Brückner, what does a “red dot: best of the best” award and a nomination for the “red dot: grand prix” mean to you?

A “red dot: best of the best” award and nomination for the “red dot: grand prix” pays tribute to the efforts of the designer to convey complex topics by means of sophisticated design. The award and the nomination can both reassure museum directors and researchers and spur them on to give museum didactics an explorative character, to use a directorial approach to design, and to allow visitors to play an active role in knowledge acquisition.

A red dot award for three-dimensional, authentic design which makes use of the space it is in is both important and necessary – above and beyond the awards for product, two-dimensional and virtual design.

As a designer, what are your plans for the future?

More emphasis needs to be placed on the conceptual potential in design. What I want to do is use collaborative conceptual work to build a bridge between the curators with their theory and content on the one hand, and the translators, implementers and designers on the other.

In your opinion, what are the particular challenges faced by designers today?

The tendency towards superficiality, sloppiness and arbitrariness needs to be countered with content-driven individuality. The designer is his or her client’s creative legal representative. It is not worth being led by opportunism. Non-conformist design, on the other hand, is commissioned art with which the designer can also identify.

How do you rate the commercial significance of design?

The commercial significance of design is enormous. Without design, whether self-produced or involuntary, everything will stop working. We live in a design dictatorship. A handwritten letter or free art are reserves untouched by design despotism.

Do you model yourself on any other designers?

Yes, of course, quite a few – and not just the obvious ones. I try to model myself on Leonardo da Vinci, Piranesi, Mies van der Rohe, Carlo Scarpa, Friedrich Kiesler, Toyo Ito, Italo Calvino, Fellini, Luis Bunuel, Tarkowski, Alkira Kurosawa, Fritz Lang, Peter Greenaway, Studio Azzurro, Charles and Ray Eames, and a few others whose projects or work have inspired me immensely; not forgetting my own design mentors, without whose critical eye I would not be who I am.