German Football Museum

The spatial and dramaturgical concepts were created by TRIAD Berlin following its assignment by the German Football Association foundation DFB-Stiftung Fußballmuseum. The exhibition planners translated the leitmotif “We are football” into a multimedia experience with over 1,600 exhibits. One essential constituent of the spatial concept is the rubber floor coverings from nora systems: In various powerful colours and with dynamically curving inlays, they present attractive eyecatchers in all exhibition areas.

Flooring as a design element

The dramaturgy behind the exhibition follows the course of a football match: In the five theme worlds “Before the match” (introduction to the emotional mood), “First half” (the world of national teams and German football), “Half time” (coaches and tactics), “Second half” (the world of club football), and “After the match” (playing area), visitors experience the many facets of the football world as presented by technically innovative, but also classical media. The emotional climax of the exhibition is the treasure room with the cups won by the national team and the federal league clubs as well as the Hall of Fame for the major German players and the team bus for the 2014 World Cup.

“A successful overall concept takes shape from the perfect interaction of each spatial component, and the design of the floors was an essential factor here,” said architect Frank Ophoff of TRIAD Berlin. Both users and exhibition planners decided in favour of nora rubber floorings – for several reasons. “Rubber is environmentally friendly, the flooring is durable and it can be installed without joint sealing and without coatings, and also the colour palette matched our ideas perfectly,” explained Michael Keßeler, Managing Director of the DFB-Stiftung Fußballmuseum responsible for the building project.

Resistant to wear and cost efficient

Rubber floorings are dimensionally stable and so can be installed without joint sealing – opening up a huge design potential including variously coloured inlays for the exhibition rooms. Installations without joint sealing give the floor surface a look of particular uniformity. Thanks to their refractive surface, however, nora floorings offer yet another advantage: They do not cast irritating reflections, and the exhibits can show to advantage, despite the countless spots and glass cases in the museum. The developers and planners were also pleasantly surprised by the durability of the rubber floorings: “The floorings had been installed while building work was still in progress, and they survived the stress in excellent condition,” continued Keßeler and Ophoff. Presenting an extremely dense and wear resistant surface, nora floorings are the perfect choice for buildings frequented by a large number of people, and, because they do not need coatings, they are easily cleaned at little cost to boot.

Good acoustic properties

Another bonus: Rubber floorings are permanently resilient, and so reduce footfall noise for a quieter and more pleasant building ambience. “The good acoustic properties of the floor covering are hugely important when we consider the numerous media installations and the high rooms,” stressed Keßeler. At the German Football Museum, not only the sport “Made in Germany” scores – also the rubber floorings from Weinheim present a convincing combination of design and function.