The Niigata Nippo, A Fun Newspaper Museum

(Design by Katsuyuki Yamaguchi, UDA.)

A spatial performance to generate fun and delights: “finding your own answers”

“The Printing Center Visitor Facility Restoration Plan of Niigata Nippo, Kurosaki Headquarter” is a project Cogitoimage jointly executed with Dentsu, the Japanese advertising agency. The challenge here was how to interpret the mission and values of printed news in a time of traditional media facing declining audiences. The primary goal is to convey advantages through spatial experiences and to bring about the identification and commiseration for “newspapers” and “The Niigata Nippo”.
"What is newspaper to you?" The space design began with a question to trigger thoughts. By providing selective differentiated information depths and interactive arrangements, it was targeted to stimulate contemplations and inquisitiveness, encouraging visitors to find their own answers. The satisfaction they experienced during the process should motivate them to share it with others. The color scheme used for characterizing the areas is CMYK, the printing colors. The diversification in exhibition techniques contributed to a pleasurable spatial performance. According to various conditions of different areas, canvas with high adaptability are used to create a richness to the spatial variability, so that visitors in their expectant explorations were met with interesting surprises when they navigate through the exhibit site.
The design team also renamed the exhibition facility to "Fun Newspaper Museum” to express the fresh image after the "revival", conveying the new impression of a fun place closer to life.