New website

The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt has launched a new website at www.schirn.de/en. Besides a fundamentally altered design, the new web presence is based on a pioneering concept. It offers visitors a digital companion—before, during, and after visiting the Schirn. The new website has been developed on the needs of all groups of visitors, and responds in an innovative way to their demanding and changing use behavior. It focuses on extensive information about the exhibitions as well as the overall Schirn program with its wide range of educational and communication opportunities. An intelligent technical set-up enables the display of individualized as well as differentiated contents and information about the Schirn depending on the respective device in use, the day of the week, and the time of access. Within only a few months, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt designed and implemented this new website in collaboration with the Frankfurt-based digital agency Henne / Ordnung. It features a slender main navigation; a clear, dynamic visual language; a dual distribution of text, image, and video contents at the central axis; as well as a semantic search, consistently carrying on the institution’s corporate identity. The site is responsive, which means that it is viewable on all popular screen sizes—from the smartphone and the tablet to the desktop computer—without restrictions.

“Five years after the last relaunch, it was important for us to design a website that offers more than just a new appearance. Our concept is pioneering and demonstrates how contemporary digital communication can look. The new website caters to the various needs of our visitors. Regardless of whether one prepares one’s exhibition visit at home, is already at the Schirn and reads on one’s smartphone that a guided tour is about to begin, or whether, after visiting an exhibition, one shares one’s experience with the Schirn community on Instagram: each context, each situation demands different information. We can ideally react to that with the new website,” explains Max Hollein, director of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

Besides the website, the visuals of the Schirn Magazine (www.schirn-mag.com) were also fundamentally altered. For the purpose of reinforcing its magazine character, a different typography was selected than for the new website. The text, image, and video elements have more space, can be displayed larger than ever before and, in doing so, facilitate reading ease. In redesigning the Schirn Magazine, one of the main concerns was activating interaction with the users. An easy-to-use comment function as well as a mark-and-share function for the magazine’s texts now allow discussing or sharing what one has read directly in the magazine itself or in social media channels. With its numerous articles, contributions, and features, the Schirn Magazine has established itself as an important medium on the contemporary art and culture scene in Germany.

In recent years, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt has been able to maintain and consolidate its leading role in integrated online communication in Germany and beyond with numerous digital developments and applications. This includes Wi-Fi at no charge at the Schirn, as well as the digitorial, the audio-guide apps, or this year’s digital exhibition projects by Britta Thie and Constant Dullaart. The Schirn’s aspiration and goal is to offer visitors an original, sensuous exhibition experience, allowing them to actively participate in art-historical reflection both at the Schirn as well as online. Therefore, the institution continuously rethinks things, scrutinizes the established and the traditional, and places its focus on themes, discourses, and trends related to art and cultural history from the perspective of the world of today.

Director: Max Hollein
Press contact: Pamela Rohde (Head of Press/Public Relations)
T (+49 69) 29 98 82 148 / F (+49 69) 29 98 82 240 / presse@schirn.de
Press material: www.schirn.de (texts, images, and films for download under PRESS)