D-Ark Lab: Where Stones Speak and Odd Objects Encounter "Top-Notch" Design Classics – The Audience Takes an Active Role in the Museum Collection

The Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design Museum's new laboratory delves into the heart of the significance of museum collections together with the audience. In D-Ark Lab, visitors can experiment, touch, discuss, and reminisce alongside the museum objects. Simultaneously, visitors can reflect individually and collectively on the stories unveiled through the displayed museum objects, and on how our own thinking relates to and shapes these narratives. What presentation method brings the stories of objects to life? 

"As we journey towards a new architecture and design museum, it's timely to explore ways and opportunities to approach familiar museum materials in a new light. In D-Ark Lab, we aim to invite diverse audiences and communities to dialogue with the collection," says Leena Svinhufvud, one of the lab's curators. 

D-Ark Lab is divided into three sections. In the Discussion Lab, attention is drawn to the ways of presenting architectural and design content. Beloved design classics from Arabia are showcased as a phenomenon, with the centerpiece being a magnificent miniature model of the Arabia factory area from 1948. The model is enhanced with digital content produced in collaboration with students from Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. Visitors can also hear the story of one of the stones from the main façade of the Bank of the Nordic Countries in Helsinki. The building, designed by the architecture firm Gesellius-Lindgren-Saarinen, stood at Unioninkatu 34 from 1904 to 1934. Now the stone narrates the story of an individual collection item to visitors and invites them to contemplate its position and/or destiny within the museum collection. 

The Discussion Lab also invites visitors to touch and try out design objects from the museum's handling collection. How does it feel to sit in Eero Aarnio's Pastil chair? Alongside classics, lesser-known, even quirky objects are on display. Some items have a tactile appeal or evoke memories of scents and atmospheres experienced around a lavish coffee table. The Collection Lab hosts open workshops and discussions. 

The Exhibition Lab forms the space for D-Ark Lab's changing collection-based exhibitions. The first exhibition in the space showcases Leena Elina Valkeapää's research-based exhibition "Samples of Perfection – Origins of the Design Museum Collection", based on objects acquired from the World Exhibitions in Vienna (1873) and Paris (1878). These objects were the first acquisitions in the Design Museum's collections, offering a glimpse into how the past, present, and future were perceived in the late 19th century. Why were these particular objects chosen to be part of the museum collection? 

The  interactive and educational A&DO Lab exhibition with its programmes particularly invites school groups to solve questions related to a good local environment. A&DO Lab, which toured Finland from 2021 to 2023 as part of Designmuseum's Museum Vision project, is an example of a museum exhibition where future museum collection content was selected through dialogue with local communities. Visitors are also encouraged to reflect on their local environment in D-Ark Lab's current documentation event, where everyone can contribute images of their own good local environment to the museum's Image Vault service. 

Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design Museum Collections in Numbers 

The Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design Museum, with their internationally unique collections, merged at the beginning of 2024. The museums' collections now comprise: 

75,000 objects
550,000 drawings
280,000 photographs
850 miniature models

Design + Architecture + Wondering Together = D-Ark Lab

The communal museum work laboratory is open at the Design Museum Studios, 24.5.2024–31.12.2025. For more information, please visit: designmuseum.fi

Curators: Leena Svinhufvud, Petteri Kummala
Exhibition Architecture: Marjut Alitalo
Exhibition Lab Design: Kerttu Lundell
Graphic Design and Visualization: Salla Bedard
Thanks to: Finnish Cultural Foundation

For more information and press images, please contact:

Ilona Hildén
Communication Specialist
press@designmuseum.fi
Tel. 044 358 2175 

Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design Museum opening hours: 

1.6.2024–30.6.2024: 

Mon 11:00–18:00
Tue 11:00–20:00
Wed–Sun 11:00–18:00 

1.7.2024–31.8.2024: 

Mon–Fri 11:00–20:00
Sat–Sun 11:00–18:00 

1.9.2024-31.5.2025: 

Tue 11:00–20:00
Wed–Sun 11:00–18:00
Mon closed