Tag Archives: exhibition design

Tiffany: Vision & Virtuosity at the Saatchi Gallery


Our latest project for Tiffany, the Vision & Virtuosity exhibition, or ‘a journey through 185 years of innovation, craftsmanship and heritage’ has opened at the Saatchi Gallery on London’s King’s Road.

The exhibition is a magnificent tour of Tiffany’s history, showcasing not only the in-house jewellery skills that have made them justly famous worldwide, but also the remarkable collaborations with other designers and creators that has kept them at the forefront of creativity since they were founded in New York in 1837.

With over 400 objects and seven exhibition sections to explore, the exhibition really does showcase the incredible range of craftsmanship the company has produced – not only in diamond jewellery, but in silverware & of course, iconic Tiffany lamps.

DHA worked with the set designers, Agence NC & video designers, La Meduse to produce seven very different rooms, each one dedicated to a key part of Tiffany’ history, from a study of their collaboration with key designers of their renowned window displays, to the role the company plays in Truman Capote’s novella, and later film, Breakfast at Tiffany’s that provided the best-known role for Audrey Hepburn: displays include her iconic Givenchy dress, the script he used and even a first draft of Capote’s novella.

The exhibition runs until the 9th August at the Saatchi Gallery, and remarkably, the exhibition is free; tickets are booked on the Saatchi app that can be downloaded from various app stores & also acts as your digital guide to the exhibition once you are there.

Holocaust Galleries shortlisted at 2022 Design Week Awards

We are delighted that our recent project with Casson Mann has been shortlisted in the Spaces category for the 2022 Design Week Awards. You can view the complete shortlist here, & while we can see the gallery is up against some great competition, we are confident the sensitive approach to this most difficult of stories to tell will be recognised by the judges.

The winners will be revealed at the end of June, so we will have to wait patiently until then, but in the meantime, congratulations to Casson Mann, Squint/Opera and all of the curators, makers, conservators, contractors and interpretation specialists we worked with to bring these spaces to life.

Oman & the World: A Musical Journey opens in Muscat

Our latest project with 59Productions, Oman & the World opened at the Royal Opera House in Muscat on the 1st June.

This wonderfully rich and immersive exhibition ‘charts the story of music in a rich and immersive journey from sounds appearing in nature, through the science and techniques of instrumentation, to the role music plays in our societies and inside each of us’ (59Productions). Music was a key interest of the late Sultan of Oman, and the exhibition is a tribute to his passion for musical arts; not only those of Oman, but also internationally & how he was keen to bring world-class musicians to Oman to perform in the Opera House.

As part of the exhibition team, DHA were tasked with creating all of the object, graphic and show sequence lighting across a number of spaces to bring the exhibition to life. We worked closely with the exhibition designers, plus the sound designers (Coda to Coda) to ensure the lighting was tightly integrated with all of the design elements. As the architectural spaces were so carefully detailed, standard track solutions were rejected in favour of a carefully plotted ceiling array that made use of a beautiful ceiling design that also functioned as an acoustic panel system – very important in a space that featured music and sound throughout.

As expected from 59Productions theatrical focus, two key immersive spaces were created for the exhibition as the first and last visitor experiences: here DHA worked with the audio-visual and sound designers to create show sequences that supported the content, changing the lighting to support the audio environment.

Article: lighting mock-ups; intense work, but necessary

When creating bespoke lighting systems for display cases, then a physical mock-up – as intensive and time-consuming as it will be – is an absolutely necessity for the best results.

Jonathan Howard recently travelled – in a Covid-safe manner, naturally – with designers from Casson Mann to the factory of Click Netherfield in Livingston, just outside Edinburgh. The aim was to test and refine the lighting in some key display cases for a new museum, opening in London in 2022.

Not only will the cases be built mainly from glass, but the contents of each case will be a variety of samples and specimens, all displayed in liquid-filled glass jars: with so many reflective and refractive surfaces in use, it becomes easy to see why only a mock-up could cope with the many variables and methods in play: lighting all of the objects to give them a suitable weight and clarity when they need to be limited in light levels, while making sure that labels and graphics are very clearly illuminated is quite a feat of engineering and one that has been occupying us in the recent months.

Separation of light levels between graphics an objects has been developed using a combination of very narrow beam angle LED fixtures by Vexica, with a series of masking elements developed by Jonathan & Click’s designers, which has meant that we can achieve light levels of over 200 lux on a graphic that is merely millimetres from a shelf that is lit to a maximum of 50 lux; this separation will allow visitors to read small text easily, while not suffering with visual accommodation problems when they look past to the objects themselves, displayed at conservation light levels that will protect their organic content. As the source of the light is masked from view, we cut extraneous reflections and glare that could easily make the multiple glass and metal surfaces become their own light sources and a source of visual confusion.

The museum will not open until well into 2022, but this work needs to be carried out now to ensure that cases can be built in good time for transport and assembly on site, ready for the collection to be transferred to the finished gallery.