Nanzan University Museum of Anthropology

A new type of museum where you can touch and enjoy all the exhibits

  • Cultural Spaces
  • View of the exhibition room. The exhibits are displayed openly, allowing visitors to touch and pick up the materials and enjoy their texture.

    View of the exhibition room. The exhibits are displayed openly, allowing visitors to touch and pick up the materials and enjoy their texture.

  • Exhibits that are meant to be touched. Spaces are provided throughout the facility where visitors can sit and feel the exhibits in a stable position.

    Exhibits that are meant to be touched. Spaces are provided throughout the facility where visitors can sit and feel the exhibits in a stable position.

  • All exhibits are equipped with signs encouraging visitors to touch the materials and Braille captions with basic information about the exhibits.

    All exhibits are equipped with signs encouraging visitors to touch the materials and Braille captions with basic information about the exhibits.

  • A book-style explanation of the exhibits, in print, Braille, and foreign languages, designed to be easily updated and added to

    A book-style explanation of the exhibits, in print, Braille, and foreign languages, designed to be easily updated and added to

  • Nanzan University Museum of Anthropology
  • Exhibits that are meant to be touched. Spaces are provided throughout the facility where visitors can sit and feel the exhibits in a stable position.
  • All exhibits are equipped with signs encouraging visitors to touch the materials and Braille captions with basic information about the exhibits.
  • A book-style explanation of the exhibits, in print, Braille, and foreign languages, designed to be easily updated and added to

Photography: ss kikaku and others

About the Project

Overview This museum is based on the concept of "touching" the exhibits so that people who have difficulty using museums, especially those with visual impairments, can enjoy the exhibits. Until now, the majority of museum exhibits have been visual, but this museum places emphasis on providing information through touch as well as sight, and is designed to allow everyone to share the excitement of touching the exhibits. This facility is a practical attempt to explore a new form of universal museum.
Issues/Themes Our goal is to create a museum that takes into consideration exhibition techniques and operation methods, allowing everyone to touch and enjoy all the exhibits.
Space Solution/Realization To realize this ambitious initiative, we had repeated discussions with museum staff about not only the display methods but also the operation methods, and considered various ideas and approaches. We had visually impaired people actually touch the archaeological and ethnographic materials, and repeatedly carried out verification processes. We repeatedly prototyped the design of the exhibition fixtures, and created them after verifying the shape and dimensions that would make it easy to touch the materials. Through repeated discussions between the museum, visually impaired people, and the exhibition designers, we created a facility where anyone can experience the excitement of touching the materials.

Basic Information

Client Nanzan University
Services Provided Design, Layout: Tanseisha Co., Ltd., Tansei Research Institute Co., Ltd.
Display Planning, Production, Construction: Tanseisha Co., Ltd.
Our Team Direction, Design, Layout: Katsumi Saito
Display Planning: Satoko Anzai, Hiroki Kuramoto
Storage Layout: Tansei Research Institute Co., Ltd. Yoshifumi Kobayashi, Hiroyuki Ichinose
Awards Selected for the "DSA Space Design Award 2014"
"5th Japan Society of Exhibition Studies Award" Work Award
Location Aichi prefecture
Open October 2013
Website http://www.ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp/MUSEUM/index.html
Tag

*The shared information and details of the project is accurate as of the date they were posted. There may have been unannounced changes at a later date.