Hi Everyone,
I hope your week is treating you reasonably well.
We're mounting a large Samurai exhibition at the end of the year. In a perfect world we'd have had two years to plan it-but here we are, making museum magic on the timeline we've got.
The traveling exhibition comes with some casework, thankfully, but we need to create 3–4 additional oversized vertical wall cases. Think less "case furniture" and more long, tall, skinny rooms.
Current rough estimate per case: approximately 8'H x 12'W x 2'D.
I'm still refining dimensions, but this should be enough to get the brainstorming started.
Existing conditions:
- We have in-house wood fabrication capacity
- We have some metal fabrication capability
- The works come with mounts, and the back wall should be MDO
- Cases should be secure, though locks are not required
- The objects do not require microclimates
I'm trying to avoid:
- Spending a fortune
- Creating a lot of waste afterward
- Anything that looks overly homemade
I'm hoping for something that is:
- Fabricated in manageable components ahead of time and assembled on site
- Elegant and visually quiet
- Recessive enough to let the objects dominate
- Self-lit, ideally with integrated small track or fixed heads
I'd especially love ideas about:
- Modular framing systems
- Reusable materials
- Integrated lighting solutions
- Smart structural approaches that don't require custom steel budgets
If you've built something similar, seen a good example elsewhere, or have favorite vendors/materials, I'd love to hear it. Photos, sketches, links, and war stories are all welcome.
And if you haven't tackled something like this before but would like to be a sounding board as we work through it, that's welcome too.
I know at least a few of you have wrestled this beast before, and I promise to report back on what we build so the collective knowledge pool grows.
Let the Frankenstein begin.
------------------------------
Matthew Isble
Exhibit Designer & Founder of MuseumTrade.org
misble@crockerartmuseum.orgCrocker Art Museum
Sacramento CA
misble@crockerartmuseum.org------------------------------