Museum Ferdinandeum

Client: Tiroler Landesmuseum
Innsbruck 2017

In June 2016 an invitation was sent out by the Tyrolean State Museum towards local designers to a design competition that aims for a consistent furnishing concept for the museum premises. Nina Mair captivates the competition jury with a design that establishes a strong connection to Tyrolean furniture manufacturing techniques, yet materialized in a contemporary formal language. The Tyrolean 'front bench', a simple wooden bench or seat placed in front of traditional houses invites passers-by to rest and contemplate, serves as source of inspiration for the design. The pieces invoke a carpenting detail that functions without gluing or any sort of screws, namely a plug connection. Through this method, the top surface of the chair leg becomes visible on the seating surface, which is borne by countless extremely lean chair legs. In dialog with architecture. In the course of several visits to the museum the behavioral patterns of the visitors as well as the architectural circumstances have undergone a thorough analysis. The color palettes and materiality of the floor surfaces of the spaces have also been taken into account. For each room size and utilisation, a customised piece of seating furniture was designed. The pieces create a formal parentheses through their continuous design vocabulary throughout the entire exhibition.