The famous Städel Museum Frankfurt is undergoing an enlargement and expansion and will be fully available to the public again in spring 2012. Two of the three areas of the museum have already been reopened again to the public. One of them is the area „Old Master paintings“ where visitors are welcomed by new exceptional paintings and a digital innovation in the building, a multitouch table.

The table gives visitors the opportunity to explore the complete paintings of all of the Städel’s collection from an entirely new perspective. After touching one of the puks on the interface, a list of themes with eight different key words appears. After choosing a key word, the visitor is promted with five personal questions. Intuitively, he can touch the question that appeals most to him and is presented with six different paintings out of the whole collection of the Städel. It is entirely up to the viewer how he reacts to it, what he thinks about it, whether he wants the painting to grow bigger or smaller or whether he wants to read the lexical information hidden behind the info button.

The design of the interface shows a black background, white puks and white fonts are designed in a way that allows the paintings to be seen in the most desirable way, the movements are decelerated. The table’s dimensions are 3,5 X 1,5 m so that several people can interact at the same time. By developing the CMS we made sure to include the possibility for our client to react and update in realtime to new acquisitions, special exhibitions and temporary items on loan or up to date

We also developed the CMS and made sure that our client can update content in realtime. New acquisitions, special exhibitions, temporary pieces on loan or up to date occurences like the financial crisis – all can be reacted to in no time.