The best designers of the red dot design award 2007 in interview: Tom Postma

The panel of experts awarded Tom Postma red dot: best of the best title for his innovative exhibition architecture of the exhibition „Myths: Jewels Today – Seen by Stefan Hemmerle“. We spoke to him about the plan behind his spatial installation.

Mr Postma, what inspired you to create this particular product and what was the intention behind it?

The exhibition’s design had to reflect the radical simplicity and the technical perfection of the jewellery of the designer Stefan Hemmerle. The Neue Sammlung, being responsible for this exhibition in the Pinakothek der Moderne, provided the perfect opportunity for creating an uncompromising presentation.

I tried to create a location for a radical re-interpretation of jewellery design, which took the form of a dark, conceptual and strictly minimalist three-dimensional installation.

The design shrouded the tiny, priceless exhibits in an appropriate aura, thus creating not only a setting and their spiritual stage but also facilitating the visitor’s awareness and spatial experience.

What does being awarded with the ”red dot: best of the best” mean to you?

I regard this award as representing the professional recognition of my colleagues. Because designing is to a certain extent an isolated activity, it’s always interesting to see that your designs fit into a general image and reflect the prevailing zeitgeist.

What particular challenges do you think designers have to face these days?

Creativity is of all times. But everything around us is becoming increasingly and more consciously designed so that a designer must concentrate more profoundly on the material, on the essence itself, so as to be able to stand out.

As a designer, what would you still like to accomplish in the future?

I like to continue what I do, developing assignments for museum design, special exhibitions, high-end shop design and new architectural ideas for art fairs. 

What do you think is the economic significance of design?

It’s vital that especially the client recognises the importance of the added value that design can contribute both literally and figuratively to everything that is constructed and produced.

A location for a radical re-interpretation of jewellery design

A selection of the work of the Munich jewellery maker and goldsmith Stefan Hemmerle is shown in an installation at Die Neue Sammlung in Munich. In his search of a setting for such a radical re-interpretation of jewellery design, the Dutch architect Tom Postma created a conceptual, strictly minimalist and dark spatial installation, which both provides an aura, a framing and a spiritual stage for the extremely valuable and small exhibits, and enables an active spatial experience and sensitisation of the viewers. Double walls become poetic surfaces for ingeniously fracturing light and moving reflections. Through a pneumatic mechanism, the architect embedded gently moving water into these doubles walls. As if in moonlight, the water sheds shimmering light via reflective foils onto the dark skin of the interior. The entire black box of 10 x 10 metres appears to float weightlessly at a height of 90 cm within the outer room of 20 x 20 metres; ramps lead the visitor into the mysterious setting. Inside the box, eight display cases rise out of the ground; another eight protrude towards them like stalactites from the ceiling. These structures, made of bullet-proof glass, constitute the only direct light sources in the entire setting. Interactive cameras record the gaze of the visitors and project them onto the exterior of the exhibition space. The architecture of the “Myths: Jewels Today” exhibition creates a feeling of modernity in which the jewellery actively plays a part in the dialogue with both the moods of light and the visitors. It interprets the theme of jewellery in a highly inspired and poetic way.