LIFE
Naturalis Biodiversity Center
Life is one of the two permanent exhibitions we created for the renewed Naturalis Biodiversity Center. We designed the exhibition without showcases, so you can almost touch the animals. It’s a journey that takes you upwards—from the bottom of the deep sea to high up in the clouds. You walk beneath an enormous shark, come face to face with an African elephant, pass a swirl of butterflies and vibrant birds. Some animals you’re even allowed to touch. Combinations of light, film, and sound make you feel like a living part of the exhibition. Here, you experience the richness and beauty of nature with all your senses.
- Location
- Leiden (NL)
- Client
- Naturalis Biodiversity Center
- Year
- 2019
- Service
- Concept, spatial design, graphic design, art direction
Changing connections
The meandering path creates ever-changing perspectives that reveal new views and relationships. At one moment you’re looking up at an elephant, and later you’re peering through its legs. Just like the animal kingdom, the design contrasts large with small, and plays with shape, color, and scale. Synchronised light, sound, and moving images bring the space to life, linking species, environments, and visitors into a single, flowing experience.
Three-part collage
Inspire, then inform
In Life, we turn the traditional exhibition structure upside down: the visitor becomes the exhibition. First, you immerse yourself in the living world: underwater, on land, and in the air. Then we provide context, background, and information for those who want to know more. Life reveals how varied, beautiful, and fragile the natural world is — and how inseparable we are from it. Everything in nature holds its place, whether it’s a tree, an insect, a bird, or a whale. Including you.
If you remove this protective layer between spectator and object, something happens on an emotional level.
One of the nicest museum experience in the Netherlands so far! It shows the Evolution of Life in a very modern and artistic way using contemporary visuals to make your visit enjoyable and amusing for adults and kids at the same time.
Awards
European Museum of the Year Award 2021
- Winner
