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Bart Guldemond developed the spatial design for the exhibitions Munich 1972. The Design of a Democratic Body (2016) and Prix de Rome Architecture 2014.

In 2019, Bart Guldemond gave a lecture at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht during a meeting devoted to exhibition design. He explains that this was exceptional because "there isn't a platform for exhibition designers." He believes this is because exhibition designers come from different disciplines: "They're originally graphic designers, architects, stylists, product designers or artists." Guldemond studied in the 1980s in Eindhoven at the Design Academy's predecessor, the Academy for Industrial Design. At that time, after some upheaval, a new director took over. "Jan Lucassen was a visionary. He moved away from rigorously compartmentalised disciplines and put together departments that focused on the relationship with the user, such as People and Living, People and Environment, People and Identity."

"Everything comes together in an exhibition's spatial design," Guldemond stresses. "I play a unifying role. During my studies, I learnt that a designer is an intermediary between the product, the manufacturer/client and the user. The designer can act as a catalyst in an exhibition's development process." For his lecture at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, Guldemond showed, through three projects, including the Munich 1972 exhibition, the different functions a design can fulfil. "In one exhibition, the design creates a relationship between different projects or objects," he says. "In the other, the design connects disparate content. In the case of Munich 1972, the design itself tells the story of the exhibition."

An important part of the story of the 1972 Olympic Games was the unlikely contrast between the interests of the Germans and those of the Black September Organisation (BSO). Germany wanted to show the world how it had reinvented itself as a modern, progressive and peaceful country. The BSO used the platform of the Munich Olympics to highlight the Palestinian cause: this was at a point in history when the games would be broadcast live on television for the first time. "Het Nieuwe Instituut wanted to tell this story and show the role design played in these events," says Guldemond. "After much deliberation, we decided to elaborate the two positions separately. Two corridors within the top-floor exhibition space were designed very differently, almost like two parallel exhibitions. We left the rest of the space empty, which allowed us to tell the story in a very concentrated manner."

"The German position is summed up in the story of the blue world," he explains. The Munich Olympics design was defined by a vivid light blue, which, according to research, was the most peaceful colour. Guldemond selected and enlarged fragments from the grid system used by the games' head designer, Otl Aicher, to develop its famous pictograms. Guldemond used these fragments as blue spatial elements in the exhibition. Black-and-white images of the 1936 Games, hosted by Nazi Germany, were visible in the recesses, like shadows from the past. "The idea was to immerse the visitor in a blue world," says Guldemond. To enhance this experience, graphic designer David Bennewith devised plexiglass information panels that floated in space like drops of sweat.

The corridor given over to the BSO's act of terror was mostly left empty. At its end, a documentary about the hostage situation was shown in a demarcated space. The most important design intervention consisted of the forms that were mounted at the end of the corridor. These refer to the Olympic Village apartment balconies, as seen in many of the iconic hostage images. The atmosphere in this hallway, with its dark grey concrete and steel grid floor, contrasts starkly with the adjacent soft blue world.

The 1972 Olympics provided host country West Germany an excellent opportunity to present itself to the world as a modern, democratic and culturally aware nation. Various design disciplines played a key role in the preparation of the Games. Architecture, design and landscape architecture were integrated into an overall design intended to radiate openness and inclusivity. Halfway through the games, this carefully constructed image was marred when eight members of the BSO infiltrated the Olympic Village and took nine members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage. The exhibition _Munich 1972. The Design of a Democratic Body_ tells this controversial story through the lens of design, by contrasting the narratives and aesthetic strategies of the organisers with the tactics deployed for their disruption.

To avoid the usual form of presenting architectural designs on panels, Het Nieuwe Instituut asked designers Bart Guldemond and Matthias Kreutzer (Our Polite Society) for an alternative. The nominees for the Prix de Rome 2014 were commissioned to develop a vision for the area around Hoogstraat in Rotterdam. "Together with Matthias, we devised an exhibition concept that foregrounds the nominees' models, and we left the walls as free as possible," says Guldemond. "We had the description of each design's rationale printed onto A0 posters, and visitors could take one with them from a stack." This exhibition's design also responded to the challenging layout of the third-floor space. "To soften the access to the parallel rows of corridors that run throughout the space, we mounted wooden frames at the end, containing large sheets of paper with information about the Prix de Rome's assignment," he explains. Ultimately, the nominated architects couldn't do without their information panels, which still flanked the models..

_Prix de Rome Architecture 2014_ presented the work of the eight nominees for the Prix de Rome Architecture 2014. As the oldest and biggest Dutch prize for artists and architects younger than 40, the Prix de Rome has been organized and financed since 2012 by the Mondriaan Fund. Eight architects, landscape architects and urban designers spent recent months working on a fictional assignment for the area where Hoogstraat and Binnenrotte intersect in Rotterdam.

Bart Guldemond started out designing exhibitions mostly for non-museum spaces such as Fort Asperen in Acquoy and De Grote Kerk in The Hague. More recently, he has designed exhibitions for Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Design Museum Den Bosch, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Guldemond began his career with Vincent de Rijk, with whom he founded a ceramics studio in Rotterdam. In 1990, he launched his own practice in Amsterdam. The spatial context plays a decisive role in his work, from exhibition and furniture designs to the settings for fashion shows, such as for Orson & Bodil and SO in Paris. Guldemond has also developed architectural projects, such as the RSVP House, an award-winning design concept for self-builders, in collaboration with Joost Grootens. In Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, he built the Artist House with local construction workers. From 1996 to 2006, Guldemond taught design at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Since 2006, he has regularly given guest lectures at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture and for the master's programme in Eindhoven.

Website Bart Guldemond