Kick-off exhibition „100 Years of Maybach Automobiles 1921 — 2021“

May­bach Foun­da­tion launch­es its own exhi­bi­tion show­case in Friedrichshafen: „100 Years of May­bach Auto­mo­biles 1921 — 2021“

In Jan­u­ary 2022, the ‚Wil­helm and Karl May­bach Foun­da­tion‘ has opened its own exhi­bi­tion show­case in the city of Friedrichshafen: Our exhi­bi­tion team in Ger­many has devel­oped a mod­u­lar con­cept for the flex­i­ble, mul­ti-use of the show­case for exhi­bi­tion pur­pos­es. By apply­ing inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy, it is pos­si­ble to com­bine clas­sic exhi­bi­tion meth­ods with mod­ern, vir­tu­al pre­sen­ta­tion approach­es. Along our May­bach col­lec­tion of exhib­it objects, the exhi­bi­tion show­case is now a fur­ther har­bin­ger of our goal to estab­lish a May­bach Muse­um in Friedrichshafen to hon­or the sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments of May­bach-Motoren­bau GmbH and the pay­ing trib­ute to the May­bach lega­cy. The show­case will present a series of May­bach exhi­bi­tions and start with our pop-up exhi­bi­tion „100 Years of May­bach Auto­mo­biles 1921 — 2021“. In coöper­a­tion with the ‚Fre­un­deskreis May­bach Muse­um e.V.‘, fur­ther pre­sen­ta­tions with excit­ing exhi­bi­tion objects are planned through­out 2022. 

Exhi­bi­tion show­case as a por­tal to a vir­tu­al infor­ma­tion plat­form  

Due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic devel­op­ments in the past two years, it has been rather dif­fi­cult for muse­ums, gal­leries and oth­er insti­tu­tions with vis­i­tor traf­fic to plan and present their own exhi­bi­tions to their audi­ence. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of pre­sent­ing exhi­bi­tions vir­tu­al­ly on the inter­net has many advan­tages, but also excludes peo­ple who do not have suf­fi­cient tech­ni­cal expe­ri­ence by using new media devices. In addi­tion, a vir­tu­al­ly imaged object, for exam­ple through 360-degree pho­tog­ra­phy, can­not ful­ly con­vey the authen­tic­i­ty and impact of the his­tor­i­cal object. The ‚Wil­helm and Karl May­bach Foundation‘-team has dis­cussed those prob­lems in detailat length, ana­lyzed the options and sought effec­tive solu­tions to the fol­low­ing ques­tions: How can muse­ums offer their edu­ca­tion­al port­fo­lio in the future to become more infor­ma­tive, aes­thet­ic, mod­ern and excit­ing­ly pre­sent­ed but at the same time inter­ac­tive and dig­i­tal as well for a mul­ti-facet-audi­ence? What does an exhi­bi­tion look like that has ana­log and dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion needs? In short: What will a muse­um of the future look like?

As a next step, we would like to test the ideas and insights we have gath­ered to date in prac­tice. For that rea­son, we are cur­rent­ly work­ing on an exhi­bi­tion con­cept that com­bines estab­lished meth­ods of muse­o­log­i­cal inte­gra­tion (for exam­ple, the use of dis­play objects, pho­to­graph­ic mate­r­i­al, texts) with vir­tu­al inte­gra­tion lev­els as well. We believe that in the future, both areas of inter­ac­tion can only func­tion and com­ple­ment each togeth­er. Our goal is to unite the phys­i­cal lev­el with a dig­i­tal lev­el of integration.

We have pre­sent­ed the first results of our stud­ies in 2021. Our pop-up exhi­bi­tion „100 Years of May­bach Auto­mo­biles 1921 — 2021“, which we pre­sent­ed at Café Gessler 1862 in Friedrichshafen, already com­bined a phys­i­cal and a vir­tu­al exhi­bi­tion approach. Inter­ac­tive inte­gra­tion lev­els were assigned to all exhi­bi­tion objects. With the help of QR-codes, for exam­pl inter­views with con­tem­po­rary live-wit­ness­es and oth­er infor­ma­tion mate­ri­als could be called up. This opens up a near­ly unlim­it­ed dig­i­tal pre­sen­ta­tion space with great oppor­tu­ni­ties for our exhi­bi­tion team – and our May­bach audience.

In a next step, we have moved our pop-up exhi­bi­tion into a show­case for the pub­lic to enjoy the exhi­bi­tion in Friedrichshafen. The show­case was con­vert­ed exclu­sive­ly for exhi­bi­tion pur­pos­es with spe­cial build­ing mate­ri­als for a flex­i­ble use and can be uti­lized in a mod­u­lar way. This means that var­i­ous May­bach exhib­it objects and image mate­ri­als as well as foils and media pre­sen­ta­tions can be applied with­out any issues. The show­case can be described as a pub­lic muse­um por­tal in the city. It enables the view­ers in Friedrichshafen to con­sume muse­um edu­ca­tion­al offer­ings in a com­plete­ly flex­i­ble and freely avail­able way, inde­pen­dent of open­ing hours or, for exam­ple, admis­sion restric­tions: around the clock, 24 hours a day. In addi­tion to the pre­sen­ta­tion of May­bach objects, images, and film mate­r­i­al — as well as spe­cials regard­ing the his­to­ry of May­bach, QR codes serve as an ide­al inter­face to vir­tu­al exhi­bi­tion spaces. The show­case will thus become a per­ma­nent land­mark and part of the muse­um’s offer­ing in Friedrichshafen. In close coöper­a­tion with the ‚Fre­un­deskreis May­bach Muse­um e.V.‘ and oth­er part­ners, the ‚Wil­helm and Karl May­bach Foun­da­tion‘ will from now on reg­u­lar­ly present top­ics about the com­plex May­bach his­to­ry in the show­case and many oth­er locations.

Pop-up exhi­bi­tion „100 Years of May­bach Auto­mo­biles 1921 — 2021“ with three new loca­tions in Q1 and Q2, 2022

For the inau­gu­ra­tion of the show­case, the ‚Wil­helm and Karl May­bach Foun­da­tion‘ in coöper­a­tion with the ‚Fre­un­deskreis May­bach Muse­um e.V.‘ is pre­sent­ing the pop-up exhi­bi­tion „100 Years of May­bach Auto­mo­biles 1921 — 2021“. After being on dis­play for ten days in Café Gessler 1862 in 2021, the show can now be seen as an open­ing exhi­bi­tion from Jan­u­ary 17 to March 20, 2022 in our new exhi­bi­tion dis­play. The exhi­bi­tion tells the mul­ti-lay­ered sto­ry of auto­mo­tive engi­neer­ing at May­bach-Motoren­bau GmbH in nine chap­ters. The devel­op­ment of the his­toric May­bach car mod­els is pre­sent­ed as well as a selec­tion of the Mer­cedes-May­bach and May­bach vehi­cles reis­sued since 2002. Begin­ning in 1919 with the „Ver­such­swa­gen 1“ (exper­i­men­tal car 1) with the new­ly devel­oped „W 1“ car engine, through the May­bach auto­mo­biles of the „Type W 3“ and „Type W 5“, to the leg­endary May­bach „Type 12 Zep­pelin“ of the 1930s and to the high-sell­ing May­bach ‚Schwingach­swa­gen‘. Final­ly, with the pre­sen­ta­tion of the Mer­cedes-May­bach „Vision 6“ elec­tric con­cept car, the exhi­bi­tion looks into the future of automobility.

Read all about the May­bach Auto­mo­bile his­to­ry in our blog arti­cle: https://​may​bach​.org/​1​0​0​-​y​e​a​r​s​-​o​f​-​m​a​y​b​a​c​h​-​a​u​t​o​m​o​b​i​l​e​s​-​1​921 – 2021/

Select­ed objects from the muse­um col­lec­tion of the ‚Fre­un­deskreis May­bach Muse­um e.V.‘ and the ‚Wil­helm and Karl May­bach Foun­da­tion‘ are pre­sent­ed includ­ing themes of auto­mo­tive tech­nol­o­gy, rac­ing and the May­bach cor­po­rate cul­ture of val­ues with the sup­port of elab­o­rate­ly designed exhib­it pho­tog­ra­phy. The exhi­bi­tion for­mat invites vis­i­tors, from inter­est­ed passers-by to May­bach enthu­si­asts alike, to embark on a search for clues them­selves. 14 inter­ac­tive the­mat­ic mod­ules with auto­mo­bile por­traits of unique vehi­cle his­to­ries, dig­i­tized exhibits, and eye­wit­ness accounts from May­bach vehi­cles can be explored. 

This year, the exhi­bi­tion will then be on dis­play at a large scale event! From May, 6 to 8 2022, the ‚Motor World Clas­sics‘ trade fair will take place in Friedrichshafen — 40,000 vis­i­tors are expect­ed. Our spe­cial exhi­bi­tion on May­bach auto­mo­bile his­to­ry will be shown togeth­er with orig­i­nal May­bach vehi­cles. This sum­mer, we will present the exhi­bi­tion at the Wil­helm May­bach School in Heil­bronn. The school awards the ‚Wil­helm May­bach Prize‘ donat­ed by the Schmid-May­bach family.

We will be hap­py to keep you informed about the fur­ther devel­op­ment of our exhi­bi­tion con­cept. If you have any ques­tions or sug­ges­tions, please write to us at contact@​maybach.​org.