We were pleased to be appointed as lighting designers for both the new Second World War Galleries and the new Holocaust Galleries, continuing our long standing relationship with the Imperial War Museum group.
Spanning two floors these vast new galleries preserve the stories of real people from diverse communities to help ensure that the world never forgets what they experienced.
The new Second World War galleries display over 1,500 collection items from across the globe. Working closely with the museum’s conservation team and exhibition designers RAA, DHA’s David Robertson developed a discreet, high quality lighting strategy that allows seamless blending between objects, graphics and multi-media. Light levels and projections are carefully balanced with artefacts to comply with strict conservation standards while retaining vibrancy and contrast.
The design of the new Holocaust galleries is a total contrast to the original Holocaust Galleries that we designed the lighting for twenty years ago. The new exhibition designers Casson Mann tasked DHA’s Jonathan Howard with creating an appearance of daylight while still staying within conservation guidelines. The new galleries are now suffused with light and colour to reinforce the fact that the Holocaust was planned and carried out in plain sight. Lighting to the artefacts continues to meet conservation standards.
Jonathan Freedland, the Guardian
“The Holocaust gallery is not dark and brooding but brightly lit. Which is unexpected but right: the Nazis persecuted the Jews in daylight. Plenty of people saw it clearly enough.”
IKEA Vienna
Following on from our successful collaboration with IKEA on their museum in Almhult Sweden, we were delighted to be involved in the new Vienna Westbahnhof flagship store in Vienna. Working with our friend Cia Eriksson, architects Querkraft and the IKEA tech team we developed concepts and strategy for this exciting new omnichannel store, including the top two floors and roof terrace that accommodate the Accor hotel brand, Jo&Joe.
