The Museum of the Future is one of Dubai's most iconic landmarks and a beacon on the global stage. ATELIER BRÜCKNER has designed the Journey of the Pioneers stretching over three floors and 3,000 square meters of exhibition space: every floor has been created as an in-world immersive experience, with strikingly powerful spatial narratives focusing on a vision of the future: life in space, bioengineering and the regeneration of damaged ecosystems, and individual wellbeing. Complementing this experience is the playfully intuitive Future Heroes children’s exhibition, occupying 1,200 square meters on the first floor of the museum, designed for children up to 12 years of age.
The strikingly unusual architectural form by Killa Design – a shimmering silver ring whose exterior walls are decorated with spiraling calligraphy – catches the eye of everyone driving along the busy Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai. It reflects and projects the Sheikh's thoughts about the future: "The Future belongs to those who can imagine it, design it and execute it. It isn’t something you await, but rather create."
Inside the museum, visitors are drawn into an inspirational, invigorating experience told through three different chapters that illustrate the challenges of the future. The Journey of the Pioneers exhibition launches museum visitors into the year 2071 in a high-speed space capsule, transporting them to the OSS Hope space station. This is where pioneers are recruited to embark on a fictitious, yet very realistically portrayed, mission in space: the aim is to use the sun's energy to power mankind by harvesting it from the moon and transmitting it down to Earth.
Many of the implemented projects have transformed the world of 2071 into a more sustainable place to live. For example, Cairo has become a Green City, as seen from the Earth Overview on the space station's bridge. Despite this, the world remains at risk: forest fires threaten the Amazon rainforest, which houses OSS Hope’s base station. Visitors are presented with an overview of current challenges and projects and are invited to sign up and contribute through recruitment stations at the end of the experience.
Back on Earth, in the second chapter of the journey, the HEAL Institute on exhibition level 4 inspires visitors to become pioneers themselves, contributing to the regeneration and healing of the ecosystem through bioengineering. First, they are immersed in the beauty of nature and discover how life in the rainforest is interconnected. In The Forest, visitors gaze upon a majestic Ceiba tree as the sound of rain fills the space, and thousands of dancing point clouds overlay the scenery with the choreographed, invisible life that infuses the Amazon.
MOTF Tomorrow-Today © ATELIER-BRUECKNER_Daniel-Stauch
The diversity and magnificence of the fauna and flora presented in the next space, The Library, will enchant anyone who enters. This experience has a mystical and poetic atmosphere. Visitors are surrounded by 2,400 laser-engraved crystal jars, each representing a species – ranging from mammals and plants to single-cell organisms – either alive or extinct by the year 2071. Throughout the space, people in lab coats investigate the jars with a special device: the Biosynth. The Biosynth enables users to browse the archive and collect the genetic codes of different species, which they’ll need in the next room, The Lab, where they create an enhanced species to help heal the ecosystem. Incubators in The Observatory show the multitude of research projects that scientists from the institute are working on in 2071: developments on fire-resistant trees, seed bombs, and lipid-rich quinoa are nearing completion. The Heal Geoscope projects data visualizations that illustrate a synopsis of projects already underway in various ecosystems: deserts, the Arctic, forests, and oceans.
As the third chapter of the journey, ALWAHA is where the pioneers encounter themselves. This is the place where visitors discover and reconnect with their senses, allowing the future to be a space of happiness, calm, and wellbeing in an increasingly technological environment.
Visitors enter the relaxing, therapeutic atmosphere through an entrance featuring a central fountain. Enveloped in warm earth tones and a soft soundscape, they are drawn into the room's alcoves. A feeling of inner peace takes over. Several treatments and therapies using novel technologies are presented. In Movement Therapy, visitors walk around, explore, and discover how movement can restore, refresh, and delight. They dance to the rhythm of wind and waves, immersed in reactive projections as spiraling whirls of sand follow beneath their feet.
Archways lead to neighbouring treatment rooms: Feeling, Grounding, and Connection Therapies. Electromagnetic waves tickle the palms of visitors' hands, and soft musical soundscapes create a deep physical awareness in the Feeling Therapy treatment room. In Connection Therapy, visitors sit down, hum, and connect to the beauty of togetherness. They share this experience at an oval table with a projection that reacts to their collective humming and contains a central floating gem. Meanwhile, in Grounding Therapy, visitors are invited to rebalance their electromagnetic field and restore their natural rhythms by immersing themselves in the healing vibrations of two treatment gongs.
MOTF_Journey of the Pioneers L4©ATELIER-BRUECKNER_Giovanni Emilio Galanello
The final experience, The Centre, is a space for contemplation, decompression, and relaxation. Visitors gaze at the beauty of light refracted through water as it projects onto an overhead dome, the surrounding walls, and themselves. They leave ALWAHA through a time portal, where they can drop their wishes for the future into a wall basin.
The Journey of the Pioneers exhibition is designed as a fully immersive experience. Its choreographed sequence of installations, accompanied by sound and scent, draws visitors away from everyday life and into a tangible future where everyone has a role to play. Light and material choices play a major part in this sensory experience. The space station walls are made of interwoven 3D-printed meshes that appear asteroid-mined. The HEAL Institute walls are crafted from sustainable rattan palm, and the ALWAHA walls are covered in clay. Every detail is thoughtfully devised and crafted with consideration for its role in the experience.
As the overall planner responsible for design, ATELIER BRÜCKNER led the creation, design, and implementation of the exhibition, drawing on cutting-edge scientific studies and research. More than 20 planning experts, visionary technologists, artists, and consultants contributed to the project’s development. Since its inauguration, Journey of the Pioneers has earned 12 international awards.
ATELIER BRÜCKNER is an internationally leading design studio and museum planner for cognitively challenging and emotionally ground-breaking visitor experiences. Founded 1997 in Stuttgart as an experimental studio for exhibition, scenography and architecture, ATELIER BRÜCKNER has become a renowned name over the last 28 years, now employing over 130 people, realizing over 220 international projects, which have been awarded 350 prizes.