- April 16, 2025 - Biosphère
This coming May, the Biosphère will be hosting, for the first time in North America, an important exhibition on the role of design in the energy transition. The exhibit Transform. Designing the Future of Energy is an initiative of Vitra Design Museum, an institution located in Weil am Rhein, Germany.
An eco-design project
Most of the exhibits produced by the German museum are designed to travel the globe. They’re modular, and therefore adapt easily to different spaces. At the Biosphère we’ve had to adjust Transform to our facilities, primarily by joining two of our halls together so that we can accommodate the project.
Our team is making every effort to minimize new construction while the spaces are being prepared, because manufacturing partitions and walls consumes a lot of resources. With a view to eco-responsibility, we always work with existing structures. For this exhibition we’ll be building just one additional wall and be making an opening between two halls.
An important part of our work was selecting the content to be presented in Montréal. Our selection respects the narrative of the exhibit, and takes care to integrate key objects and historical references. And while Transform explores the present and future, it also reminds us that thinking about our energy use didn’t begin today, that it spans the 20th century. We were also eager to strike a balance between interactive content and more specialized content that offers us opportunities to delve deeper.
Content adapted for the Biosphère
The exhibition’s curator, Jochen Eisenbrand, creator and author of Transform, submitted an initial proposal as a starting point. He identified what could be removed without any alteration to the experience. One of his decisions was to eliminate the entire section on nuclear energy and its numerous installations in Europe. Since that energy source has not been exploited much in North America, the removal was fully justified.
The importance of making room for Canadian design
Deleting that section allowed us to add local content, one of our institution’s wishes being to provide the exhibit with a local anchor. We integrated close to a dozen objects and creations from Montréal, from Québec and from elsewhere in Canada. To find those objects and creations, an important accelerated research phase was conducted last fall – work that led us to contact designers, architectural firms, artists, university departments and companies specializing in energy. The project thus makes it possible to bring together a rich community of scientists and creators, showing to what extent environmental issues call for an interdisciplinary approach. For each of our projects we have new collaborators! All these partners responded with considerable enthusiasm to the exhibition project and agreed to lend us their objects, often free of charge. Evey loan requires meticulous coordination: negotiating agreements, approving texts, authorizing image distribution, design of presentation fittings, transportation of objects to the Biosphère and their installation… A whole lot of work went into making this exhibit a reality!
Another important task carried out by our team was adapting the Transform texts. Those texts in German and English were translated into French, then adjusted to better suit our visitors, for whom this might be their very first contact with design. The lengthy process was carried out in close collaboration with the Vitra team. We even adapted their tour booklet for families.
Many challenges ahead
An intense production period awaits us over the next few weeks: receipt of objects (presentation modules, platforms, showcases, furnishings) and setting up the exhibition. For reasons of eco-responsibility, we chose to have our content delivered by sea. Three containers, filled by the Vitra team in late February, will be arriving in the port of Montréal in early April. In all, 47 cases are expected, weighing a total of 10 tonnes with a volume just under 100 cubic meters.
A team will be charged with delivering the containers, one at a time, to the Biosphère. Given our limited storage space, the objects will be unloaded directly in the halls. Every piece will be subject to a condition report in order to document any damage that might have occurred during transport. A team of nearly 15 people will be dedicated to mounting the exhibit, which will stretch over a period of three weeks.
That’s some challenge for a small team! We don’t have any experts in transport management or object conservation, unlike museums with dedicated specialists. Fortunately we can count on the help of a good number of contract workers, who joined our team just for the preparation of this important exhibit: exhibition project manager specializing in international touring, researcher, designer, copywriter, editor, museum technician... Not to mention the essential support of the Espace pour la vie teams. A project bringing people together, where every bit of invested energy helps bring Transform to life!
