How should the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich be set up to make it a cool place for young people? What kind of rooms do they want? What could exhibitions look like? Where do they feel comfortable? How can it be interesting?

In the building on Ausstellungsstrasse, the students examined the foyer with store and café, the exhibition rooms, the vestibule, the Swiss Design Lounge, the studio, the corridors and staircases. In sketches, plans, color differentiations and words, they recorded what characterizes these rooms and paths. In the next step, they developed their own exhibition ideas and scenographies, built models and photographed them from the perspective of fictitious visitors. From a young perspective, these are important ingredients for a positive museum experience:

There is a great interest in scenography, in immersing yourself in themed worlds. They should be conveyed less via the text level and more via spatial concepts. With interactive stations, care should be taken to ensure that they can be used by more than just adults. Analog offerings are just as appreciated as digital ones - variety is important. Changes of perspective are popular: a view from above or the opportunity to slip inside somewhere. Young people want to be surprised and discover something. Search games or clues to something tiny or something oversized or excellent are popular. At the same time, they were not as interested in the drawers of the Collection Highlights as they were in the openly displayed objects. The fountain for water and wine aroused great enthusiasm. Not only that they could drink here. Humor, wit and fun in the museum go down well. "Recognition" is a value in itself: this refers to people with whom they have had contact in the museum context. But it also refers to exhibits that they know from their own lives. The pupils are interested in objects and topics that they also deal with in their private lives and at school. They are interested in the stories "behind" them or information about the processes that lead to a product. They want attractive offers for different age groups - being able to make something themselves, like in a studio - and places where they can "just be" without any specific requirements - chilling out like in the Swiss Design Lounge.

Children in Design Kids Club #4: Kids Place came to similar conclusions. The Swiss Design Lounge and the Atelier ranked high on the popularity scale. It is not only young people who appreciate the qualities of these spaces that make the museum a social place. The experiences and insights gained from both courses will be incorporated into the concept and educational program for a new permanent exhibition of the collections, which will open in the Toni-Areal in 2025. The desire for immersive experiences has already been realized by the scenography office ZMIK in the exhibition Jugendkollektiv: jung love Züri.

Im Rahmen des dreijährigen Outreachprojekts (April 2021 bis März 2024) öffnete sich das Museum für Gestaltung Zürich jugendgemässen Fragestellungen und Perspektiven. Im Fokus standen dabei das in der Sammlung bewahrte Kulturerbe, das Ausloten der spezifischen Potenziale von Designvermittlung sowie museologische und strategische Fragestellungen.