Authors’ Comment
Romanian Design Week, the most important event that brings together all the creative industries, showcasing a selection of the best architecture, design, fashion and graphic design and Diploma, the young graduates' festival from the architecture, art and design universities in the country (both presented by The Institute team); took place in 2020 at a short time interval in the Senat Gallery, and had as main requirements an easy metamorphosis of the exhibition architecture while keeping intact the identity of each event.
The starting point was inspired by the architectural concept developed by our team since 2013 for Romanian Design Week, that of promoting sustainable design by permanently reusing in a creative manner all the exhibition elements. In all RDW editions and several Diploma editions, the props accumulated over the years were recycled in different forms, but each time a new main element was added to it, which defined the character of that certain exhibition.
In this case, taking into account the lack of display walls in the space, the different nature of the elements in the two exhibitions (design objects versus works of art) and the different display needs (RDW presenting objects exposed horizontally, while the Diploma many works needed to be exhibited on the wall), we proposed the creation of versatile podiums and walls, made of metal frames previously designed by us for earlier editions, plated with galvanised metal sheets attached to a rigid already existing support, which allowed a quick reconfiguration from one exhibition to the other. The texture of the galvanised metal sheet created a complementary atmosphere with the industrial space of the gallery, while providing a neutral background.
A reference to the museum spaces consisted in paraphrasing the court of honor and the glass pyramid at the Louvre, with the introduction of the central pyramid of neon lights as the main architectural element in the Diploma exhibition.