The House of Strauss is a holistic experience about the life and work of the Waltz King, Johann Strauss II, and his dynasty. I acted as creative director and co-curator for the whole project from the early concept phase to it's opening in October 2023.
The project involves a museum, a restaurant with a garden, a souvenir shop and at it's core, a historic ballroom 19th century ballroom.
The Museum
Research
In the beginning there was just an idea. And a construction site. In order to be able to plan the exhibition in the first place, we sought out experts in the field of Strauss history. Prof. Eduard Strauss, the great-great-grandson of Johann Strauss, Strauss researcher Prof. Norbert Rubey and the Strauss collector Helmut Reichenauer gave us a rough overview of the history of the Strauss dynasty and where original images could be found.
Concept
After digging into the material I drafted the rough concept for the museum's storyline and selected an agency with experience in exhibition design to refine the concept. It took several intense sessions at the location and online to finalise the detailed design concept.
Production
With the detailed concept, the next step was to produce the actual exhibition. That meant on the one hand to guide our Strauss experts to gather the needed material and write the texts and on the other hand to find the right partners for tech development, print, motion design, construction and so on. I put together a consortium of professionals to build the exhibition within a few months. Here's an overview of the documents that were necessary to get one station of the museum in production.
To design the walls meant to plan the print formats as well as the composition of the pictures and information boards. I rebuilt all wall of the exhibition in a scale of 1:10 for most flexible workflow. Ultimately those design files were also used as templates for the hanging.
The Exhibition
The final exhibition opened in October 2023 and tells an insightful and entertaining story about the Strauss Dynasty throughout the entire 19th century. It combines classic static wall displays and showcases with interactive, multimedia elements and it tops off with an audio visual show in the ballroom.
1. Introduction to the 19th century in Vienna
2. Birth of Johann Strauss I, the dance culture in Vienna
3. Building the Strauss-Music-Marketing-Machine
4. The greats of their time about Strauss‘s music
5. Operettas - Johann Strauss II conquers the theatres
6. Find your personal Strauss melodie
7. The women of the Strauss Dynasty
8. Histoy of the Casino Zögernitz
9. History of the "Blue Danube Waltz"
10. Ballroom - Johann Strauss Revived
Some of the museum's highlights:
The Waltz King Revived
The finale of the museum visit is the 15 minute show on a 9 meter wide LED screen in the historic ballroom. The first part is a summary of the Strauss history and the in the second part, visitors get to witness Johann Strauss II stepping on stage and perform a medley of his most well known compositions. I wrote the screenplay, selected the visual production studios and did the art direction for the whole show.
The luggage
This interactive station allows visitors to rummage through the personal luggage of the 4 composers of the Strauss dynasty. In this case, “luggage” or "baggage" is meant in a figurative sense, because it is emotional baggage. The suitcases provide insights into the protagonists' very personal stories.
Compositions in the rhythm of time
Johann Strauss, his father and his brothers always observed current events and knew what was moving people. They dedicated their works to popular personalities or named their compositions after current events. This station presents 3 exemplary works. Here, visitors learn the historical background and hear an excerpt from each work, accompanied by animated images.
Operettas
To give visitors the opportunity to really dive into the world of Strauss Operettas, we created a stage and a box situation. In the audience box visitors can scroll through the plot of Strauss' most famous operettas, designed in a comic style.
On stage visitors can become part of one of the glamorous and funny scenes of an operetta. By taking a photo of their face, the photos are being mapped into an animated scene, created from original historic imagery.
The mastermix
This interactive mixer challenges visitors to mix together an imaginary daily routine from Johann Strauss. It turns out that in addition to composing, rehearsing, performing, organizing, marketing and other activities, there was little time for rest and for the family.
The pulse
This very simple interaction acts as if it would measure the visitor's pulse and then it presents the composition that suits the visitor from the repertoire of the Strauss dynasty, which includes well over 1,000 works. Once a song is selected the visitor can open the song on Spotify via a QR code.
Branding and marketing material
House of Strauss
Along with the work for the museum exhibition, I also designed the logo for the whole House of Strauss brand, the key visual for promoting the museum, the website and the marketing material. The key visual combines the well known golden Strauss statue with lesser known figures, but interesting figures cut out of historical newspaper illustrations.
Casino Kulinarium
During this process we decided to establish the museum's restaurant as it's own brand so that it would attract a local audience while the museum is aimed at international tourism. So I designed a logo and brand material.
Audio guide
Audio guide
To enable a great experience for visitors from all over the world, we created an online audio guide, accessible with any smartphone via the museum's internal wifi. The audio guide is based on the same technology as the website - both digital touch points reflect the museum's colourful design. One design system spans across all digital touch points.
My work included
Creative Direction
Exhibition Concept and Design
Co-Curation
Tendering and Briefing
Branding
Graphic Design
Interface Design
Content Production Management
Website Conception & Design
Project Management
Project Partners
Project Developer: Hermann Rauter
Exhibition Research and Texting: Prof. Norbert Rubey
Consultation: Prof. Eduard Strauss
Exhibition Concept: Atelier Brückner
Interior Design: Denis Kosutic
Web Developer: Christian Cito
Animation: Roman Hansi
Animation: Media Apparat
Development: Bildwerk
Make-Up (Show): Kristin Barthold
Violinist (as Johann Strauss): Johannes Fleischmann
Print production: Michael Knaus
Videos: Jakob Stickler, Michael Preston, Atelier Brückner, Patrick Primus, Josef Šindelka
Photos: Flora Hübl, Jakob Stickler, Atelier Brückner, leo Titz, Georg Brennwald, Sima Prodinger, Josef Šindelka
Project Team: Irmingard Flögl, Tim Rauter, Leon Rauter, Mahsa Rezazadeh, Katharina Steinwender