SPREAD — Think the Past, Create the Future.

The Tsubame-Sanjo Factory Museum was a unique temporary exhibition in a disused factory dedicated to the history and culture of the local metal processing industry. To bring the complex project to life, numerous collaborators from different studios and design areas worked together, but the creative and design lead was in the hands of SPREAD, a creative agency that was founded in 2004 by Haruna Yamada and Hirokazu Kobayashi and is based in Tokyo. SPREAD combines the environmental approach of landscape design with the visual techniques employed in graphic design while also incorporating other aspects such as the environment, living organisms, objects, glyphs, time, history and memory. Above all, SPREAD uses colour in its multiple award-winning work to stimulate the senses and emotions. In everything they do, the designers strive to “spread” whatever subject they take on.

SPREAD in an Interview with Red Dot

Red Dot: Which topic did you want to help spread with the Tsubame-Sanjo Factory Museum?

SPREAD: The exhibition aims to throw a bridge between the history and culture of the local manufacturing industry and the next generation. The metal processing industry in the Tsubame-Sanjo area is discernible, but little known. The objective of the exhibition therefore was to create a series of activities to visualise the attractions that the manufacturing sector has to offer to both the local community and outsiders.

How important was creating an immersive exhibition experience to you?

Immersion is indisputably important for the exhibition experience. The utilisation of a defunct factory that had remained untouched for years, tremendously contributed to creating a sense of immersion for this themed exhibition. The most important aspect of the project was to make visitors actually walk the factory floors and experience the energy of the location through smells, sounds, etc. with all five senses. That is also why we decided not to put an excessive number of exhibits on display, so that visitors could get a sense of what a huge idle factory means for the character of the region and the industrial sector. Detailed information and explanations are important, but intuitive experience is the key.

How did pink come to be chosen as the main colour of the visual identity in such an industrial setting?

The pink is inspired by the colour of fire. Fire as it is used to heat metals at the production site. It is thus the key element for the local industry. We have used pink symbolically in the form of stripes to recall the black and yellow floor-marking tape used in factories to warn of possible hazards. It is exciting to take a look behind the safety barriers of the manufacturing industry.

The message that the designers wanted to spread with the exhibition has also been received by the jury: “The concept and design of the Tsubame-Sanjo Factory Museum are very impressive. An immersive exhibition experience has been conjured up from nothing – an abandoned factory. The atmosphere it creates through the way it is staged, with the perfect interplay of location, exhibits, projections, videos, graphics, sound and light is so intense that it is impossible to resist.”