The first visit to the air-conditioned “strong-room” in the Stifts-archiv (monastery archive) of St. Gallen with the monastery archivist Peter Erhart was a very special moment. We encountered a fascinating organizational system with chests, drawers, boxes and portfolios for artistically made cards and documents, which may only be handled by those wearing gloves. Then there were the books in the full-height shelving – with the appropriate respect we took down the handwritten originals and the first examples of printed material. The books are medium size, not constrained by any kind of current day standardization, in bindings made of fantastic materials, cardboard, linen and leather. The thread-stitched, hand-bound books could be easily opened and the individual details of the binding conveyed a great understanding of functionality. We were surprised by the unusual form of the areas of text and the layout. In many cases pages were divided vertically in the middle, the outer columns were empty or used only marginally, whereas the columns of text that run into the gutter margin were covered from top to bottom with precise calligraphies in small lettering and with an animated but yet rhythmical expression. The archivist explained to us that this “half-page” system was adopted to leave room for later entries, commentaries and additions. Peter Erhart then showed us the finds that he had selected, which were to be the actual focus of this project: four original diaries kept by travelling monks. The two curators, Peter Erhart and Jakob Kuratli Hüeblin, wanted to present these rare documents of the Benedictine culture of travel to the public for the first time. They planned an exhibition in the culture space of the Stiftsarchiv, an exhibition catalogue and academic publications, with translations of the Latin texts into German and Italian. These diaries are about travels in southern Europe, which in those days were often undertaken by aristocrats, musicians and men of letters, in this case with a religious background and the appropriate travel goals: first of all Rome as a spiritual centre, then on to Naples, regarded at that time as the world’s most beautiful city. “Vedi Napoli e poi muori – Die Grand Tour der Mönche (“See Naples and Die – The Grand Tour of the Monks”), was the title of the project that refers to travels and life, the secular and the spiritual. Reinhard Gassner

Under this title the Stiftsarchiv St. Gallen presents an exhibition about the travel culture of the Benedictines. It offers a view of the monks’ surprising high level of mobility, and their interest in the language and culture of the south at a time when travelling was still an art. The objective is to structure the theme itself as well as the large amount of valuable exhibits (texts and images) and to present them scenographically in a space measuring 600m². The exhibition area is transformed into an urban space with lanes, corners, squares and interiors. The contents are structured and divided up between four boxes that you can walk into. At one and the same time they could be both containers for transport (outside) and studioli (inside) and are ascribed to the four thematic areas Peregrinatio, Instructio, Recreatio and Memorabilia. Essentially, the life of the pieces on display develops inside these boxes. Using specially developed patterns, colours and signets made up of initials the studioli are immersed in a baroque, semiotically charged atmosphere. The design work was preceded by research in the appropriate places and in Rome itself. The interplay between density and calm is developed in a way that is similar to the contrast between the travels of the monks and their usual life based on contemplation and stabilitas loci.

A narrative typography that chatters away cheerfully: the task was to develop a system of graphics for large glazed elements in an administration building. The solution: word games with anagrams. The word anagram comes from the classical Greek “anagraphein” which means to rewrite or write again. A short text provides the letters that serve as the material for repeatedly new word inventions and combinations. The word games are, of course, nonsensical, but it is amusing to follow the transformations and to discover new contents time and time again. The game has a total of c. 3500 transformations, which were carried out in 111 text columns with almost 80.000 adhesive letters, font size 70 points, applied to the glass using a special sandblast film.

»Konstruktive Provokation« (Constructive Provocation) attempts to explain the density of contemporary architecture in Vorarlberg (clearly evident in the immediate surroundings) within the framework of an exhibition and explores frequently asked questions such as »how is that possible?« It describes architecture not as an extract but as a part of a living culture of building in its technical, design-related, social, ecological, hand-craft and personal aspects. Instead of emphasising the works of individual architects and explaining single buildings by means of models and plans, the exhibition tells about the roots and the growth of a broad-based movement that allowed architecture of a high quality to develop. »From rumour to myth: That’s how you could describe the last decades of Vorarlberg architecture.« Dietmar Steiner The exhibition consists of a series of theme-related introductory portals. Various levels of reading allow the visitor to proceed from a general insight to in-depth immersion in the theme. The first level shows photographs by Ignacio Martínez on the fronts of the cubes; short texts augment and explain what is shown. In a second level drawers that can be pulled open and wall elements offer insight into further details and architectures relating to the respective materials.

Eberl Print im Allgäu is a regular partner of Gassner Redolfi that implements ideas in the area of high quality printing. With the 3D E effect and printed packaging material Eberl opened up a new area of business and sought our assistance with the visually equipping of the sample boxes and the design of the firm’s trade fair presence at CO-REACH 2014 – Fair for Crossmedia Marketing in Nuremberg. The basic idea of the trade fair architecture is a huge capital “E”. The horizontal bars extend on the long axis. They define the space while at the same time functioning as an attractive display window that offers interesting views inside and outside. The broad vertical bar of the “E” extends into the depth of the stand throughout its entire height, offering wall area and the necessary storage space. The floor area of the island stand measures 12 x 7 metres. The entire scenography with its spatial intimacy and communicative appeal when seen from different distances achieves an unexpectedly high visitor frequency and is great success at the trade fair. The new sample box “3D E-Elements” also contributed to this success. A continuous word and image landscape that extends across 12 effect cards weaves together, organises and provides samples of the different colour groups, different finishes and various types of paper. The information system is supported by a clear verbal and visual declination.

Working together with architect Alberto Alessi, Zürich, Gassner-Redolfi develops a permanent exhibition in an exhibition space measuring 400 m² in the new administration building of the international timber construction company RUBENS in Kiens, South Tyrol. With the title “Holzperspektiven” (Wood Perspectives) the exhibition tells about the forest, trees and buildings, makes the physical and haptic qualities of wood tangible, and demonstrates the importance of this material for the culture of building, in earlier times and today, both regionally and internationally. The exhibition is a reminiscence of the phenomenon wood, a haptic, spatial narrative about wood, starting from its source as a raw material and extending to different perspectives on how the material can be utilised. This is not a product exhibition but a wood exhibition. It is about the passion for wood which is clearly evident in the RUBNER business and which the exhibition aims to convey.

Since November 2011 the Vorarlberger Architektur Institut – known in short as vai – has been responsible for the project selection and editorial design of the cover series for the “Leben & Wohnen”supplement to the Vorarlberger Nachrichten newspaper. The concept of a media cooperative, which Reinhard Gassner helped to develop, is new. The exhibition “Hohe Auflage” is intended to present this remarkable collaboration between vai and VN in an enjoyable, enthusiastic overall show. 33 reports, representing a total of 175 pages on architecture, are detached from the property supplement and a facsimile is made of them on a fifty-metre-long piece of paper. This length of paper is stretched through the exhibition spaces, moves up and down, is twisted in the middle around its own axis, and finally runs out on the floor. Associations with the form of reproduction are awakened by web offset printing on a paper roll, which is standard in massprinting. By lining up the contributions the enormous variety and quality of this reportage is clearly demonstrated. A glossary concludes the series of contributions on the length of printed material web. The selected words from the fields of architecture and mass communications were compiled from various encyclopaedias and dictionaries. A section of a printed image enlarged more than one hundred times serves as a macro view of the reproduction technology. This wall-mounted image, 566 cm wide by 302 cm high, shows the dot matrix of images and the blurred edges of letters. In the special issue “Nur Text” (only text) the architecture stories – just the texts – are combined in a limited edition of 3500, stacked on a pallet for people to take them home with them. A word image the size of a wall makes the 33 headlines of the contributions readable in a new way. The “forced justification” in narrow columns placed beside each other, with exaggerated spacing between the lines, leads you to read horizontally. This typographical faux pas produces poetic lines made up of words and fragments of words apparently arranged at random next to each other.

»Bauen mit Holz – Wege in die Zukunft« (Building with Wood – Paths to the Future) is an exhibition by the architecture museum and the timber building department of the TU Munich that was launched in 2012 in Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne. Now, in an adapted form, it is presented by proHolz in cooperation with the Künstlerhaus in Munich. The aim of the exhibition is to explain and convey to a wider public the transformation of the building material wood, ignored for so long by modern architecture, into a new source of hope for forward-looking urban building. The information is presented in the form of short texts, plans, photographs or videos on 120 cm wide, vertical strips of silk paper that extend the height of the space. The unbleached, naturally brown strips of paper are combined with models of timber buildings precisely constructed in the TU Munich and give the exhibition its rhythm. Dates and facts are transformed in impressive explanatory graphics. The relationship between the “primal plant tree” and the technical world of planning and building is also a theme of the exhibition logo. An archetypical house is here formed out of the branches of a tree and semantically focuses on the core messages: that wood is a renewable, highly efficient building material and that building with wood is active climate protection. In the publication that accompanies the exhibition well-known specialist authors analyse the ecological significance, technological potential, and new aesthetic of this familiar construction material.

The United Nations declared 2011 the “International Year of Forests”. In response to this the architecture museum and the department of timber construction at the University of Technology in Munich presented an exhibition that dealt with the ecological, technical and design possibilities of this material. The exhibition starts with the forest and reflections on wood as a raw material. Opposite this, five current timber construction projects are presented and their benefits in terms of climate protection are explained. After this 52 selected international examples illustrate new digital finishing methods and illustrate the architectural diversity of modern timber construction: from the low energy house to wide-spanning structure to high-rise buildings. A room made entirely of beech wood completes the exhibition. Rarely encountered in timber construction, this wood is here used most effectively for various building elements that form the floor, ceiling and wall, employing a variety of surface finishes. The chief protagonists are the models of timber buildings made with acribic precision by students from the architecture faculty at the TU Munich (department of timber construction). The stands for the models presented are uniform, delicate frames made of spruce. The information is presented in the form of short texts, plans, photographs or videos on 120-centimetre-wide strips of silk paper extending the height of the room. The unbleached, naturally brown lengths of paper surround the huge rooms and give the exhibition a rhythm. Dates and facts are transformed into impressive explanatory graphics. For example: the amounts of different kinds of wood are translated into a 20-metre long bar diagram that uses pieces of the various woods. An 80-year old spruce tree – from the rootstock to the tree top – lies in the middle of the exhibition space as a scenographic intervention. The 40-metre-long trunk is freed from branches, some of the bark is removed, and it is divided into individual sections with increasingly fine longitudinal cuts. The top of the trunk points towards a 5x5 metre patchwork made up of different wood-based materials. The link between the tree as a primal form of plant and the technical world of planning and building is also a theme of the exhibition logo. An archetypical house is shaped from the branches of a tree and focuses in semantic terms on the core messages: wood is a sustainable, highly efficient building material and building with wood is active climate protection. In the publication accompanying the exhibition nine well-known experts analyse the ecological significance, technological potential and new aesthetics of this familiar material. Bauen mit Holz – Wege in die Zukunft Architecture museum of the TU Munich in the Pinakothek der Moderne 10.11.2011 – 05.02.2012

The design of the exhibition with sculptural models of the buildings and reduced plan graphics is continued in the truest sense of the word by 8 A1-size “poster tear-off blocks“. Here visitors to the exhibition can help themselves. For each of the projects exhibited an iconographic image is chosen that conveys the atmosphere of the respective building in the most striking way. The strong photographs speak for themselves. The header to each poster clearly classifies the particular building depicted and through pictogram-like representations also refers to the other seven buildings in the exhibition.