Radnički: Then and Now exhibition

Designing an experience you can actually walk through.

Most of our work lives inside screens: grids, frames, components and responsive breakpoints. For Radnički: Then and Now exhibition, we had the chance to take the same way of thinking into a physical space, one with real dimensions, materials, architecture and people moving through it, and we were genuinely excited to see what that would teach us.

Together with Vega IT and the Museum of Vojvodina, we designed how six decades of Radnički building history would unfold through the lobby: how visitors would move, what they would encounter first, how the chapters would relate to one another, and how panels, display cases, objects and screens would become part of one continuous story.

What we did

Exhibition concept · Spatial storytelling · Moodboard · Materials selection · Mockups · Prepress · Installation coordination

What we achieved

4 chapters on one continuous route · 10 days on show · Guided tours with the curator · Visitors’ own memories added to the exhibition · And everything an exhibition leaves behind once the walls are empty again: impressions, memories, new acquaintances and the quiet pleasure of learning something new about a place we thought we knew.

The Reality

Four chapters, one busy lobby, and a story most of us only half know.

Radnički is one of those buildings Novi Sad recognises immediately, even if not everyone knows the full story behind it. Built as the Radnički University, it was a place where generations came to study, learn languages, attend cultural programmes, meet and exchange ideas. Its activities ranged from adult education and publishing to a cultural centre, while later, as the Novi Sad Open University, the building remained part of the city’s everyday life through initiatives and institutions including Radio 021, the Svetovi bookshop and Raspustilište.

Then came the fire, followed by years in which the building stood empty, before its reconstruction and a new chapter as Vega IT Radnički. For the building’s 60th anniversary, Vega IT and the Museum of Vojvodina brought that history together in Radnički: Then and Now exhibition.

The exhibition was organised into four thematic chapters:

• the origins of workers’ and people’s universities, the construction of the building, and Radivoj Ćirpanov, after whom it was named;
• the activities of the Radnički University itself, from education and courses to the cultural centre;
• the Novi Sad Open University years and the fire;
• and finally, the reconstruction and Alpha IT’s new chapter.

The largest section explored the life of the Radnički University itself, from adult education and foreign-language courses to publishing and cultural programmes. The content came in many forms: photographs in different formats, newspaper clippings, archival material, original objects, sculptures, video and several screens. The lobby had plenty of character of its own, with a slide, plants, a mezzanine, a marble counter and furniture already in use, and we wanted to build on as many of those existing elements as possible so the installations and exhibition would feel like it had always belonged to Radnički. A chronological display could have covered the facts. The brief asked for more: to turn all of that material into one coherent experience, so visitors could understand the story by moving through it and perhaps recognise a piece of their own history along the way.

That left us with a few fundamental questions:

• How should a visitor move through the exhibition?
• How could four thematic chapters feel distinct without becoming disconnected?
• How could panels, display cases, plinths, objects and video work together?
• And how could the story feel as though it belonged to the building rather than simply being placed inside it?

We knew this ground from the other side. We have worked with Vega IT for over twelve years, from their brand system to the book Život preduzetnika.

The Shift

We designed the journey before we placed the exhibits.

The brief asked us to think about the concept and visitor experience before deciding where every individual object should go, so we started with movement.

The route came first.
We looked at how people naturally enter and move through the lobby, then structured the four chapters along that journey. The story needed a beginning, progression and conclusion before individual panels had exact positions.

The chapters did not all need the same amount of space.
The section on the activities of the Radnički University contained several stories of its own; adult education, foreign languages, publishing and the cultural centre, so it became the exhibition’s largest chapter and occupied the central part of the space. Smaller sections were given enough room to remain clear without competing with it.

Rather than treat the lobby as a neutral shell, we wanted to work with what was already there. Existing architecture, furniture and circulation became part of our thinking. One idea was to cover and use the existing billiard table for displaying exhibits instead of bringing in an additional piece of furniture. It became a good example of the principle that guided the whole installation: work with the space rather than place an exhibition on top of it.

Throughout the process, we worked closely with the Museum of Vojvodina so that the curatorial content and the spatial concept could develop together rather than one simply being fitted around the other at the end.

When the canvas has actual walls

The Build

The same design principles, different constraints.

Most of our product work happens in a controlled, two-dimensional environment, while at Radnički familiar design questions suddenly had physical consequences.

A hierarchy had to work from several metres away. A composition had to account for architecture, furniture and people crossing the space. Typography had to survive print, materials and changing viewing distances. Navigation meant an actual person deciding where to walk next.

The principles stayed familiar while the variables changed.

We developed the production specifications and worked closely with the print and installation teams to make sure the visual concept translated accurately into the physical space.

This included:
– defining materials, panel construction and thicknesses,
– the appropriate types of foil and application methods,
– as well as the technical details of how individual elements would be produced, mounted and installed.

Working through these details with the production team allowed us to maintain the intended visual hierarchy and quality all the way from the screen to the finished exhibition.

Impact

The story got a room, and visitors added their own chapters.

The Radnički: Then and Now exhibition opened in the very building whose history it told. Across four chapters, visitors could move from the origins of the Radnički University through decades of educational and cultural life, the Novi Sad Open University period and the fire, to the reconstructed Radnički they were standing in.

Curator Vojislav Martinov led guided tours through the exhibition, and visitors who had their own memories of Radnički could leave them as part of it.

For Vega IT, the 60th anniversary became an experience inside the building itself, created together with the Museum of Vojvodina.

For us, it was a chance to take principles we use every day, hierarchy, flow, navigation and information architecture, beyond the screen and see what happens when people can literally walk through them.

The Reality check

Physical limits can be surprisingly freeing.

What surprised us wasn’t moving from screen to space. It was how much we enjoyed working within real physical limits: walls, materials and fixed dimensions you can’t simply resize.

It’s a different kind of freedom from a digital canvas: less infinite, but no less creative.