Public Display of Collection

The display structures at the new Blumhardt Gallery are as much a work of design as the collections they hold.

When Wellington architects Sam Kebbell and John Daish, and industrial designers Robert Greig and Bernd Benninghoff were commissioned to design the exhibition furniture for the Dowse’s new Blumhardt gallery for New Zealand applied arts and design, they took the brief literally. “There’s a lot of discussion in the design industry about ‘raising the bar’ but we thought the bar was already high, which is why someone like Doreen Blumhardt wanted to create a gallery,” Kebbell explains. “Our response was to see this work as holding up the bar or sustaining it. There is also the element that people have a good discussion around the bar.”

Founded by CBE recipient and renowned potter Dr Doreen Blumhardt, the Blumhardt Gallery is the flagship gallery for design and craft in the new-look Dowse. The Dowse, situated in Lower Hutt, has long been home to some of the most creative collections in the country. Closed for several months for redevelopment, the Dowse will unveil its new look alongside the newly built Blumhardt Gallery on its upper level in February.

With the country’s top designs on display, the interior design of the Blumhardt had to be of the highest standard. A collaborative effort saw Daish, Kebbell, Greig and Benninghoff win a national competition to fit out the gallery. Their idea was beautifully simple. “Once we had this idea of holding up the bar, we created physical bars which are held in place by a number of different physical supporting elements that populate the space, almost like people,” describes Daish.

The metaphorical concept translates to display a wide range of objects from motorcycles to pottery. “It was important to design something that could accommodate a range of objects. Each time the system was installed it could appear different to the last exhibition by using exactly the same language, while making a bold statement about the differences in work,” points out Greig. The result is a system of over 100 pieces that is as much a part of the Blumhardt collection as the pieces it will display.

Like the Blumhardt Gallery, the collection has been devised to create an imaginative response, and with an impressive list of exhibitions lined up for 2007, it looks set to have its position firmly in the ground as the home of New Zealand’s premiere design.