The famous Städel Museum Frankfurt underwent an enlargement and expansion and is fully available to the public again since spring 2012. One of the museums' three areas is the „Old Master paintings“ where visitors are welcomed by new exceptional paintings and a digital innovation in the building, a multitouch table.
The table gives visitors the opportunity to explore the complete paintings of all of the Städel’s collection from an entirely new perspective. After touching one of the puks on the interface, a list of themes with eight different key words appears. After choosing a key word, the visitor is promted with five personal questions. Intuitively, he can touch the question that appeals most to him and is presented with six different paintings out of the whole collection of the Städel. It is entirely up to the viewer how he reacts to it, what he thinks about it, whether he wants the painting to grow bigger or smaller or whether he wants to read the lexical information hidden behind the info button.
The design of the interface shows a black background, white puks and white fonts are designed in a way that allows the paintings to be seen in the most desirable way, the movements are decelerated. The table’s dimensions are 3,5 X 1,5m so that several people can interact at the same time.