Museum and Exhibition spaces that have won FX Awards


We look at the Museum and Exhibition spaces from the last five years that have won FX Awards


As a competition that encourages both international and UK designers to enter, the FX International Design Awards has categories for everyone from suppliers to architects, and products to large-scale projects. For those interested in entering the 2020 FX Awards, the deadline for entries is fast approaching! More information can be found here – make sure to enter your project or product before 25th July.

With the 2020 FX Awards season just around the corner, we have put together a series that looks at previous projects that have won FX Awards. Showcasing Award-winners from 2015-2019, each article in the series focuses on a specific category; today, we’re focusing on projects that have previously won the Museum or Exhibition Space Award.

An independent panel of experts judges the FX Awards, and the panel changes for every category – and each year. As such, the projects that have previously won the Museum or Exhibition Space Award truly are the best in the world.

2015

Yu Geng Shan Wine Museum, by Godolphin

Located 20m underground in what was once a Cold War bunker, the aim of the Yu Geng Shan Wine Museum project was to create a ‘wine culture’ experience that was both experimental and educational. As visitors make their way through the museum, their journey should follow the process of creating a fine bottle of wine: starting at planting, moving through harvesting, ageing, and finally to tasting.


Image: Rob Cleary Photo

The design team used the onsite materials as inspiration for the project, including showcasing the beautiful granite walls that was exposed during the initial de-construction of the bunker; the team was able to open portions of the bunker walls to reveal the granite, and also used the rock quarried from the site as a construction material. As a result, 75% of the recycled materials were used on the project.

2016

Museum of Natural and Environmental History, Shizuoka, by Tanseisha Co

Established on the site that was once a high school, in the Shinzouka Prefecture of Japan – the home of Mount Fiji – the Museum of Natural and Envirnomental History is the first museum in Japan that focuses on environmental and natural history.

Designed by Tanseisha Co, the brief of the project was to use the ‘learning environment’ of the former school that sat on the site within the build, in order to create create a place for studying both environmental and natural history. Each of the Museum’s exhibition rooms recreate a school-style environment, using chairs, desks and blackboards. However, the furniture has been arranged in unusual ways, so that visitors rethink the spaces they are visiting.

2017

Tirpitz, by Tinker Imagineers

A former Second World War bunker on the west coast of Denmark, TIRPITZ is a museum complex that was designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (architecture) and Tinker Imagineers (exhibition design). As guests arrive, they move through a central courtyard into underground galleries, which lead on to the historic bunker; the Museum tells the story of an ‘impressive war machine’, with one of the galleries taking visitors on a journey through time and space, by transforming into a 4D audio-visual theatre experience every hour.


Image: Mike Bink Photography

Throughout the Museum, the concrete bunkers have been designed to act as the personal spaces of the Danes and Germans who worked and lived around the Atlantikwall; by moving through the Museum and exploring the bunkers, visitors discover the personal tales of these individuals. Serving as a gateway to the remarkable landscape of the region, the Museum has been designed to incorporate changing colours, sounds and temperatures to create its playful exhibitions.

2018

Tiandi Art Museum, by Enjoy Design

Located at the Tiandi Lake, on the south bank of the Jialing River in Chongqing, China, TIANDI Art Museum consists of an Art Exhibition Hall, the Vanke Brand and Project Experience Hall, and a Museum café. As part of the project, Enjoy Design has created different display platforms that are connected through staggered stairs; these create different heights within the display space that can display a range of artworks, including contemporary works from local artists.


Image: Jian Feng

The design team chose to emphasis the path of the viewer by contrasting white walls against black stairs, in order to ‘weaken’ the internal space’s sense of structure. This also gives the impression that the outdoor scenery is closer to the indoor objects than it actually is, making the natural surroundings act as part of the exhibition on display. In the Project Experience Hall, the design team chose a low ceiling height, in order to introduce the lake landscape to the space and control the sight lines.

2019

Hintze Hall, Natural History Museum, by Casson Mann

Both celebrating Hintze Hall’s scientific legacy and introducing a new vision for the Natural History Museum, Casson Mann’s design aimed to reimagine the Museum as a ‘Cathedral to Nature’; it celebrates the beautiful existing building and reuses the historic cabinets to showcase new specimens, all while maximising the Hall’s light and space. The goal behind the project was to ‘inspire the next generation of scientists and naturalists’.


Image: Casson Mann and The Trustees Of The Natural History Museum, London

Throughout the project, the design team considered the scale, proportions, rhythm and materiality of the space, manipulating the natural and artificial to help choreograph display units and visitor facilities. Suspended from the roof of the Grade I listed building is the centre piece, a blue whale skeleton, while the ‘Wonderbays’ created under the arches of the Hall contain star objects, ranging from a giraffe skeleton to a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite.








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