Tilman Thürmer pleads for ‘The Living Museum’ at the Shanghai Design Week 2013

In his speech during the 2013 Shanghai Design Week’s Exhibition and Convention Forum, our CEO Tilman Thürmer took a clear stand point on where museums should head in China: beyond design. “Creating living spaces is not only about hardware – architecture, design, or selling products or tickets – but about an intangible software that you cannot see, but that you can clearly feel when entering a space.” said Thürmer.

During the conference that took place on September 4th as part of Shanghai’s annual Design Week, he focused on four strategies that could be used to create successful museums in China, and showed best practices from China and abroad. As a part and indicator of China’s prosperity, museums have been opening in a high pace in China. But visiting a museum is still considered by few Chinese tourists. The status quo seems to be a growing offer of museums but a stagnating demand. Thürmer emphasized the momentum for museum professionals to start thinking about how to bridge this gap, and seek for support and advice to help them develop the right museum ‘software’ to come ‘alive’: “Successful environments are not merely buildings. They are rather a collection of ideas and values that translate not only within a space, but far beyond the walls of a space, into a real and virtual world. They ‘live’.”

The speech attracted an audience of more than 150 guests, and resulted in an abundance of questions and remarks, including a response from Wu Chenglin, Chairman of Shanghai Convention & Exhibition Industries Association. He stated that the thoughts and work of Tilman will inspire the Chinese design industry to improve and develop.