Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, 2017
For the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave (Leiden) Soda realised - within the existing floor plan - the design for the interior (including lighting and furniture) of the entrance area, the shop, the museum café and the rentable spaces.

With a collection illustrating five centuries of scientific research and innovation, and an intensive collaboration with leading figures in science of the present day, Rijksmuseum Boerhaave offers visitors of all ages a closer look into the world of science. The museum highlights the most important discoveries in Dutch scientific history and zooms in on the researchers behind them and how much impact their discoveries still have on our current lives. The museum is named after Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738), a famous professor of medicine from Leiden. 

In her design, Soda used enlargements (of details) of scientific engravings as visual elements. The images that Soda installed, not only refer to the scientific collection but also support the routing as the movement in all the used images is left-oriented: all animals walk to the left, all figures look to the left et cetera. This generates an almost unconscious, very natural direction of movement. Besides engravings, Soda also made use of objects from the collection. The museum reopened in December 2017.

 

The photo above shows a print of an enlarged engraving, applied on a stretched canvas with light behind it.

A portrait of Boerhaave was installed in the counter by Soda. This portrait was taken from a small medallion in the collection. It was enlarged, 3D printed, applied and highlighted. Thus, visitors stand face to face with a world-renowned scientist.