Hannover, April 2, 1995
Daimler-Benz is presenting projects in research and technology at this year's Hannover Trade Fair - at a stand that is using space to communicate in a completely new way. For the duration of the fair, Daimler-Benz AG's corporate function Research and Technology has established a living interface to the fair's audience of specialists. Future-oriented research projects are personally presented by those members of Daimler-Benz staff who are actually working on them. Great efforts have been made to create a workshop atmosphere with lots of opportunities for visitor involvement in the form of experiments, demonstrations, and talks. The entire exhibition, which is being presented this year under the motto "Pushing Back the Frontiers," depicts the international nature of Daimler-Benz's research activities.The architecture creates a new type of communication environment by means of a single element - a long, white wall with many sharp angles that runs through the entire rear part of the 50-meter-wide stand. This wall, which looks something like an endless, light strip of paper, creates through its angles a sort of landscape with clearings and secluded areas. It is made of thin, white-lacquered aluminum plates, and thanks to its sharp bends is practically free-standing. Its surfaces are used for projections and, like a wall-mounted newsletter, for presenting information about the research projects.
The angular nature of the wall results in an open zone at the center of the stand. This is the forum, at which discussions, presentations, and lectures take place around the clock. The simple dark-gray wooden cubes, which double up here as comfortable seats, are used all over the stand as stools and pedestals for equipment and exhibits.
In order not to diminish the dramatic effect, the existing space around the stand had to be made deliberately neutral and unobtrusive. The ceiling and floor (sisal), are dark, as are the walls of the hall behind and on both sides of the stand. Necessary functional areas such as offices, conference rooms, and technological areas are located behind the angled wall.
The stand achieves its overall effect through the generosity of its structure, permitting open views where necessary and individual areas where desired. It also provides a novel way of supplying a concentrated, uninterrupted density of information in a digestible form.
The original concept was developed for the Daimler-Benz AG stand at the 1994 Hannover Trade Fair, and has been further developed this year. The organization of the communications events at the stand and the organization of the architecture are derived from a single general conception, with a result that constitutes a new kind of exhibition in form as well as in content.
The stand was organized in collaboration with: Atelier Markgraph (concept, communications, direction) and the architecture firm of Kauffmann Theilig & Partner (architecture)
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© 1995 Daimler-Benz