Lindt Home of Chocolate

The architects Christ & Gantenbein have completed a spectacular new building for the Lindt Chocolate Competence Foundation in Kilchberg near Zurich. It houses a chocolate museum, an an education and research centre, and a chocolaterie where visitors can craft their own chocolates. iart worked to realize lighting and media schemes for the exhibition, based on concept and design by Atelier Brückner.

In the large entrance hall on the second floor you will find the Chocolate Tour, an interactive exhibition with various themed rooms: the first room takes the visitor through the stages of cultivation, harvesting, fermentation and drying of cocoa beans on a cocoa plantation in Ghana. The second covers a 5000-year history of chocolate, in which we discover why Switzerland became the "Land of Chocolate”. A time tunnel, "From Past to Present”, provides a chronology of the changes since 1900. “How chocolate production works today” is the theme of the next room, which takes form reminiscent of a modern day factory. Towards the end, chocolate is placed in its global context, and the experience wraps up with a tasting of the world's most sought-after Lindt specialties. And finally, visitors can even take a look behind the scenes in a production room with a test facility and follow the creation of products step by step. In terms of content, the exhibition is thus similar to the "Swiss Chocolate Adventure" at the Swiss Museum of Transport, which was also realised by Atelier Brückner and iart for the Lindt Chocolate Competence Foundation.

The exhibition's media is interactive and adds virtual dimension to the visitor experience. For example, you find yourself accompanied by a maître chocolatier who appears on various screens and projects through several rooms, speaking directly to you. In the "Swiss Pioneers" room, a three-dimensional landscape is accentuated by lighting and given more depth by projections. The "Facts and Figures" room features an interactive wall with motion-responsive stars on the central projection. The centerpiece is the round surface of three-dimensional globes lit up with images from within by small interior projectors. In the "Innovation Lab", opaque film screens fade into transparency as you approach, and in the "history room”, game environments react to visitor presence.

The lighting scheme of the exhibition emphasizes adaptation to the respective contexts: In the "Bean to Bar" room, two series of cool white luminaire installations stage the sequence of individual steps in chocolate production. The Jungle, which demonstrates themes of cultivation, is bathed in dramatic chiaroscuro. And the tasting takes place under specially developed luminaires in the shape of luxurious cylinders.