The renown exhibition designer and architect Herman Kossmann was our guest for the 21st edition of School’s Out! on the 29th of October. Herman talked about his pioneering work in exhibition design, which started in the 1990’s and how this practice Kossmann.dejong, which he co-founded together with Mark de Jong, developed into an international operating design studio specialised that aims to create engaging, narrative spaces through a combination of different media and collaboration across disciplines.

Over the last decades, Kossmanndejong has delivered more than 100 projects worldwide. From the Netherlands Architecture Institute to Schiphol, the Stedelijk museum to world exhibitions in Shanghai and from Dubai and the Artis Zoo to the Jewish museum in Berlin and the Dolhuys in Haarlem. Recently, two projects were awarded the European Museum of the Year Award: Naturalis and the Stapferhaus in Lenzburg, Switzerland. Kossmanndejong is currently working on a temporary exhibition on Nature for the Stapferhaus, the new permanent display at Paleis het Loo, a major exhibition on Dutch former colonies in the Tropenmuseum and the Port Experience Center on the 2nd Maasvlakte in Rotterdam.

Programme

18:00 – 19:00 Doors open, drinks, bites and tunes
19:00 – 20:00 Lecture by Herman Kossmann
20:00 – 20:30 Short film, selected by Jord den Hollander
20:30 – 22:00 Drinks, bites and tunes

About Herman Kossmann
Herman Kossmann is partner and co-founder of Kossmanndejong, an interdisciplinary studio that designs narrative spaces. He graduated as an architect from the technical University of Delft after which he began his career as a teacher at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, while carrying out a number of mayor renovation projects in Rotterdam as an independent architect. In the beginning of the 90’ he was asked to design and manage some large exhibitions, which became a new direction in his work. In 1998 he set up an interdisciplinary design office, based in Amsterdam with fellow student Mark de Jong: Kossmann.dejong. The office is working throughout Europe and Asia and is many times national and international awarded for their work. Herman was was co-author of two books about Exhibition design: Engaging Spaces and narrative Spaces, and gives regularly lectures at different academies and schools in the Netherlands and abroad. He has been part of various programmes at the Independent School for the City, where he developed the Citizens of the Anthropocene studio together with ecologist and landscape architect Dirk Sijmons.