The Pinakothek der Moderne in Münich by Stephan Braunfels (2002) recently went through a complete renovation, and for the re opening of the museum Audi debuted the design wall, an installation that has become part of the permanent collection of the Die Neue Sammlung (The International Design Museum).
Aluminum is the epitome of lightness and stability. Audi has been closely associated with aluminum expertise in the automotive engineering field for many years. For the Audi installation, around 1,800 models of the legendary Ur-quattro form an “aluminum carpet”. Each of the models, weighing around 860 grams, were cut away from a seven-kilogram block of aluminum. The future of the Audi brand rises up from foundations formed of these aluminum Ur-quattros. The sculpture evoking the Audi Sport quattro concept soars up vertically. The show car translates quattro technology and its tradition in motorsport into a futuristic formal idiom. A mirror suspended on the ceiling allows visitors to explore the installation from an unusual perspective.
“The Audi design wall visualizes the bridge between the past and the future of our brand,” explained Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, AUDI AG Member of the Board of Management for Technical Development. “The common thread is quattro technology, which defines Audi more than any other.” The work was devised by the Audi Design team specifically for this room in the Pinakothek der Moderne. “We created the Audi design wall with the passion of an artist and exercised maximum precision in visualizing the core technology of quattro,” commented Hackenberg in describing its evolution. The idea for the exhibit itself came from an internal competition among Audi designers. The challenge was to come up with an object that communicates with the onlooker. The Audi design wall is also visible to passers- by outside the museum.
The exhibition object documents the intensive collaboration between two partners from the worlds of industry and culture. “As a design-oriented carmaker, Audi is an ideal partner for Die Neue Sammlung. We plan to continue infusing the partnership with life over the coming years,” declared Prof. Dr. Florian Hufnagl, Director of Die Neue Sammlung. The museum, which opened in 1925 and now has a collection of over 80,000 objects, ranks as the oldest and largest design museum in the world.
