Identity through system

Everyone wants exhibition stands that are mobile, flexible and modular, all of which can be achieved with trade fair building systems. They are also expected to project an identity. And that is where the challenge lies.

Trade fair stands are like Trojan horses out to conquer new exhibition halls. Their intention is largely peaceful as they neither conceal enemy warriors nor those much feared computer viruses of modern-day media networking. What these "temporary structures" do contain are messages and information about brands, products and services. "Temporary structures are systems that are suitable and intended for assembly and disassembly at different locations", the German building regulations state. The term designates structures that are the opposite of immovable structures, that is, they are edifices that are not fixed to a particular location.
The first portable structures date back to prehistory and were born out of the practical need to ensure the survival of peoples living a nomadic lifestyle. These tents could be dismantled and quickly erected and taken down again by their inhabitants. The principle of support and membrane, pressure and tension provided the prototype for all subsequent modular building systems. The development of new materials, from the cast iron support to the super-light aluminium tube or from cotton fabric to the optimised composite membrane, has always provided a source of inspiration for nomadic architecture. But also technical advances in marine, aeronautical, or automotive engineering were initially put to use in temporary architecture. In 1922, Le Corbusier noted in his "Towards a New Architecture": "Architects are confined by the constraints of their academic learning, ignorant of the new rules of building, cooing over their own ideas. But the designers of ocean liners consciously create bold palaces against which cathedrals appear minute: and they throw them out to sea."
The concept of industrial prefabricated building had a formative influence on the German Work Federation, the Bauhaus movement and latterly teaching at the Ulm School of Design (HfG). The school's department for Visual Communication was the first to establish exhibition systems, trade fair stands, and exhibition pavilions as important building blocks in the corporate identity system. The information issued by the HfG in 1955 states: "In cooperating with a company, we strive to project an appropriate image of the company through the design of forms of communication ranging from stationery headers and company trademarks to the exhibition stand." And so Otl Aicher together with Hans G. Conrad developed a flexible exhibition system made of slim steel sections and laminated wood boards that was presented for the first time in 1955 at the German Radio, Television and Phonographic Fair in Düsseldorf.
Today, mobility, flexibility and modularity are the basic essential prerequisites for keeping pace with the cycle frequency of the trade fair business. Modular building systems with their intelligent connection solutions offer considerable flexibility for combinations in a multitude of different locations. It is a particular challenge to implement systems that convey the spatial identity of the exhibitor in question beyond the mere fulfilment of functional parameters. The higher-level structure must provide sufficient freedom for integrating messages and information on a variety of different brands and products. This can be achieved by furnishing the stand with individual wall and ceiling inserts and adding components such as lighting, animations and furniture. In the light of new forms of presentation, like smaller in-house exhibitions, for example, modular systems offer a way of responding to dynamic processes of change of an enterprise. At the same time, long-term use also offers an answer to sustainability. Unlike immobile structures that are built for "posterity" or single-use architecture, modular systems can be adapted quickly to changing content or target groups. An aspect that increasingly concerns not only exhibition architecture but also our new living and working environments. Jons Messedat

m+a report Nr.5 / 2006 vom 14.08.2006
m+a report vom 14. August 2006