The organization itself can wear the brand — it isn’t just the employees’ who can “wear the brand”. The organization’s physical being can (and should) express its brand and purpose. When an organization expresses its purpose through the way it is physically situating itself, I like to think of it as “whereing” the brand.
From Andrew Taylor, who writes The Artful Manager blog about the business of arts and culture, comes this example of an organization whereing and wearing its brand, by expressing its purpose from the inside out.
Because Taylor recognizes the ways that museums and other arts institutions miss opportunities to expand their reach and impact, he notes with concern how
” so many cultural facilities are inward-looking behemoths (massive stone or glass facades, seemingly with their backs to the outside world)”
Thus, Taylor is intrigued by this example of of a museum playing with the relationship between its physical structure and its social surroundings.
In the photo (left) it may not look like anything out of the ordinary for a museum building, but wait until you see the video (below).
Static Authenticity
The building belonging to the Gallery of Modern Art at the Kunsthalle Hamburg is itself is an example of “modern” art/architecture. The design of the building expresses the purpose of the organization it houses. In this way, museum as an organization has turned itself outwards as well as inwards (i.e., towards external stakeholders as well as internal ones), because its external representation shows the organization’s purpose.
That’s authentic, sure, but it’s kind of a static authenticity.
Consider that, since the design and construction of the museum building (by O. M. Ungers) was completed in 1997, the building hasn’t been a dynamic, interactive, conscious expression of the organization’s purpose– until now.
Take a minute to click on this video. Watch for 10 seconds, until you see the ‘reveal’.
555 KUBIK | facade projection | from urbanscreen on Vimeo.
Enacting Organizational Purpose on the Outside
Consider for a second the aesthetic and learning experience you’re having watching and listening to this video. What do you think of the way that this organization is bringing to life its identity as a modern art museum and its purpose of bringing art to the public?
Is this organization enacting its purpose and expressing its authenticity in an engaging way, or what?