Over a four-year time period, an authentic Roman bathhouse in Limburg, The Netherlands has been inspected by experts from all over the world. Chapters created an exhibition telling the new story of the oldest building in The Netherlands — a hyper realistic exhibition that lets you get lost in another time.
After years of extensive research, it was discovered that the Roman bathhouse is much older than was originally thought. The bathhouse was built in three phases, making it the oldest building of the Netherlands. Chapters was challenged to bring the history of 400 years of bathing to life in an exhibition that would become an attraction for locals and regional tourists.
For 400 years, the Roman bathhouse was bathed in and built on. As the area developed with more Roman influences, so did the bathhouse. The bathhouse is a reflection of our society.
Everything has been discovered and partly preserved during the excavations. The building, remains of the residents, construction elements and materials, but also the objects that were used during bathing. The only thing that has been completely lost is the water. It is the lack of water that stops the bathhouse from coming to life to its visitors. They see an excavation. A pile of stones. Not the bustling bathhouse it once was. A lost treasure. Bringing the water back into the bathhouse to make it come to life is the strategy we designed for the exhibition.
A lost treasure that does live in our society and is associated with water, is the Titanic.
In our concept, we made the story of the Titanic our inspiration for the design of the exhibition, creating completely blue spaces in organic shapes to give visitors the illusion of walking under water. Objects are exhibited as if they are floating under water. In an exaggerated form, this is how we brought the water back into the bathhouse — literally bathing visitors in historical knowledge.Projections, holograms, and other multimedia create a contemporary exhibition style.
To place the Romans in a modern-day time, projections, holograms, and other multimedia were used to create a contemporary exhibition style.
For all communication tools, we kept the font and graphic style in line with the corporate identity of the museum in which the Roman bathhouse is preserved — a clean, modern style that speaks to all ages.
The exhibition was well communicated and well received, with the museum attracting three times as many visitors as in prior years.
Chapters designed and produced the exhibition and all communication in collaboration with Monos Advies.
