Museum of London, Sherlock Holmes

Project Details

Client:  Museum of London

Budget:  £20,000

Timescale:  10 Weeks  

Location:  Museum of London

Design Team: Neu Architects with Seán & Stephen

Project Type: Public art installation 

Project Description

The installation coincided with the Museum of London’s major 2105 exhibition “Sherlock Holmes - The Man Who Never Lived And Will Never Die”. The installation in the museum foyer comprised of brightly coloured doorway structures, each one an iteration of the famous front door at 221B Baker Street, with clues and illustrations offering a visual and coded depiction of a Sherlock case.

Visitors were invited to don their metaphorical deerstalker and work out the coded distillation of each story - cryptic symbols and motifs within the screen printed floors contain hidden clues about a theme, character or object, enabling the visitor to decipher the title of each story. A 13 metre-long ‘glitch tweed’ graphic (a contemporary take on the Houndstooth tweed pattern) formed a dynamic backdrop to the entrance foyer, a visual link with the Victorian tile patterns applied to the floors of each structure and a way-finding motif leading visitors to the exhibition itself.

The configuration of Mind Maze within the museum foyer changed regularly: it could be clustered in a maze formation or re-arranged so that the structures create the illusion of one long, multi-coloured façade. The installation uses a variety of materials and processes. Simple aluminium frames held engraved acrylic sheets with brightly coloured perforated metal surrounding each door and screen printed plywood bases.