Museum of Mystery

DESIGN CONSULTANCY, SPATIAL DESIGN, FURNITURE DESIGN

The Museum of Mystery — an interpretation center —pays tribute to Ivan Vučetić, an anthropologist, police officer, and inventor who pioneered the use of dactyloscopy and laid the foundations of modern forensics. This Argentinian-Croatian inventor was born on the island of Hvar in Croatia, where he resided until his early twenties, when he emigrated to Argentina.

Vučetić assisted his father, a cooper, in crafting wine barrels. The museum is situated in one of the town's oldest houses, which still belongs to the Vučetić family. The ground floor, now home to the museum, once served as a "konoba," a place where Vučetić and his father manufactured wine barrels. In this manner, the location itself becomes an exhibit within the museum.

DESIGN CONCEPT

The idea of presenting centuries-old stone walls as a work of art harmonises with the concept of using glass as an exhibition material. Glass, as a smooth, transparent material with a non-porous surface, serves as the ideal medium for "reading" fingerprints when placed against a solid-coloured surface and viewed in the right light. Therefore, the exhibition's content, directly printed onto the glass, resembles fingerprints on a smooth surface.

While the upper part of the exhibition design, constructed from glass, highlights Vučetić's achievements and his life in Argentina, the lower part serves as a tribute to his childhood and early years in Croatia. The cabinets, crafted from natural oak veneer and decorated with horizontal and vertical slats, symbolise the metal rings that secure the oak staves in place, forming a wine barrel.