Mirroring the past – The reconstruction of Jacob Jordaens’ private showroom

The exhibition ‘At home with Jordaens’, hosted by the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, was the first monographic exhibition of the seventeenth century Antwerp-based artist Jacob Jordaens in the Netherlands. The exhibition’s centrepiece and biggest design challenge was the reconstruction of Jordaens’ showroom: a spectacularly decorated reception room in his private home in Antwerp where he welcomed wealthy clients. 

Innovation
Archetypisch was asked to design this temporary reconstruction as a completely closed ‘room within a room’ in one of the museum halls. When entering the replicated space through a short connecting tunnel the surrounding hall including its exhibits remained invisible to the visitors. Challenging was the lighting of the nine large ceiling paintings. Instead of installing light rails underneath the ceiling that would block the view, the rails and spots were concealed in the recoiling upper walls. The walls themselves consisted of frames with backlit printed fabric and showed enlarged replications of the original wall decoration drawn by Jordaens. The indirectly lit ceiling and softly backlit walls created a warm and glowing atmosphere. 

Creativity
The key addition to the original design was a mirror floor made of real mirror tiles. The floor’s function was twofold: Practically, looking downwards at the ceiling paintings is much more comfortable than looking upwards. And as a figurative meaning, the mirrors created a stunning and very engaging visual effect as it doubles walls, ceiling and visitors. The resulting spatial experience was very much in line with the overwhelming aesthetics of the Baroque period and with Jordaens’ skilful intention to impress his clients. For prolonged contemplation and to balance the dazzling effect mirror chairs were provided throughout the whole exhibition. 

Functionality
The space immediately activated visitors to engage and play with it. It was very photogenic and a great success on social media. Many posts showed the visitors’ interaction with the mirror floor and how the people of today merge with the seventeenth century artworks. Visitors were literally engulfed in the paintings and experienced what it must have been like to be in Jordaens’ showroom. 

Sustainability
Working with rented elements and reusing materials was a core strategy of this project. Both floor base and truss system were rented from the building company. The Belgian Phoebus Foundation, owner of the paintings and commissioner in this project, purchased the custom made ceiling construction that fits the nine ceiling paintings for future exhibitions. The mirror floor was re-used by building company Fiction factory for a different exhibition.