Haringpakkers Tower rebuilt for Amsterdam Light Festival
This project still ranks as one of our proudest achievements. For the Amsterdam Light Festival, with the production help of Studio Louter, we recreated a long vanished tower in order to prove a point about landmarks. [...]
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Studio Todd van Hulzen is an Amsterdam based design studio specialized in showing off: creating museum exhibitions, visitor experiences, design presentations, exhibit furnishings, art objects and theatrical environments.

Exhibitions can be emotional experiences: when done right. Let us help you create a compelling visitor journey without losing sight of your institutional principles. We offer display solutions for all budgets, innovative concepts, […read further]

If you require an unusual film set you need a broadly experienced designer. Todd van Hulzen has 30 years of film experience. He’s built on his love of historic architecture to become the go-to guy for the design of period sets […read further]

works of art

Studio Todd van Hulzen is essentially an art studio. Besides practical design Todd van Hulzen is a fine artist, creating in a variety of media.  One-off artworks are available on commission, and soon a line of commercially available reproductions can  […read further]

Immersive Labyrinth in Almere

Here is the first part of a two pronged project in Almere, the design of an exhibition space and an invitation to be one of the artists in the exhibition. Almere is a medium large city east of Amsterdam that typifies the engineering prowess of the Dutch: within 40 years

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Exploded View Viewers in Monnickendam

Voilá a design for exhibition gadgets from the do-I-know-what-i’m-doing department. . This is for viewer of digital content which will be housed in an in-museum “lookout tower” in the Waterlands Museum & Belltower in Monnickendam, and it’s supposed to look and function like a landscape viewing scope. The content is

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Roman wall paintings for “Het verhaal van Nederland”

It’s a bit hors concours but I’ve done some nice set painting again, and the historical series that it was done for has now aired. Het verhaal van Nederland (The Story of the Netherlands) created by the Dutch public broadcaster (yay!) aired early in 2022 and really surprised everyone with it’s

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Refugee Family Portraits

Just a little in-between project full of good will: a traveling expo of family portraits taken of refugees in the camps on the Greek island of Lesbos, famous for it’s dire conditions and hope-killing prospects. The exhibit showed in the main municipal library of Amsterdam on the Oosterdok. The dominant

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Todd van Hulzen, Guest Lecturer

What do you do to stay professionally sharp and give back? Each year Todd takes some time out to work as a guest lecturer: this year at the Netherlands Film Academy, at the Reinwardts Academie (museum sciences) and at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences for its multi-media minor “immersive design”. Since

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Display case in style of Gothic Scriptorium

Channeling my inner Viollet-le-Duc (the great French champion of the Gothic-revival) I designed these nice display stands modeled after medieval scrivener’s lecterns, or scriptoriums (yes, we struggle with the proper Latin scriptoria). These variations on the display case are for the Noord-Holland Archives in Haarlem, housed in the ancient Gothic

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Waterland Museum & Speeltoren

Preparations are underway for the redesign of the Carillon Gallery in the Waterland Museum and Speeltoren in Monnickendam. After an initial trajectory, together with Studio Louter, of making a bid-book and a very succesful fundraising, we have started to fully develop a new permanent exhibition. It tells the story of

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First Americans at Museum Volkenkunde

Despite all the precautions due to Covid19, we enjoyed a lovely opening of our most recent project, First Americans at the Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. The exhibition is a contribution to –or answer to – the Pilgrim Year of the city of Leiden, in which the “pilgrim fathers” who

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‘Johan Enschedé’ in the North Holland Archives

Finally, together with our partners Studio Louter and North-Holland Archives in Haarlem, we opened the exhibition “Johan Enschedé: Printer of Value” . Since 2015, the North-Holland Archives has aquired the unique and extensive collection frp, the printing house Royal Johan Enschedé. On November 25 a permanent exhibition dedicated to Enschedé

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Kick-off for ‘Hof van Nederland’, in Dordrecht

We are very happy with our newest commission for the Hof van Nederland / Dordrechts Museum. The Hof, or “court”, a former Augustinian monastery, occupies a very special place in Dutch history. You could almost call it the “cradle of Holland” because of two important events there: the first independent

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A New Intern

Since June we have a new intern in the Lutmastraat, Ludivine Pabeau. Ludivine comes all the way from France to do an internship at Todd van Hulzen Design, and that’s going very well. Ludivine has a background in architecture in France and now focuses on spatial design with an ecological

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who is Tvh?

todd a van hulzen

designer

Todd van Hulzen (1967) comes from the state of Oregon in the U.S.A from a family of Dutch Reformed rancher-farmers. He studied history and art in Portland, Oregon (Lewis & Clark College.) After an initial stay in the Netherlands in 1989, and in Italy after that, he settled permanently in Amsterdam in 1999. He returns yearly to Klamath County, Oregon to work on his cabin.

After an early career as a fine artist and sculptor in the film world Todd moved on to be a designer of film sets, with as a specialty period architecture and design. As Art-Director/Set-Designer Todd designed film sets for the Oscar nominated films Girl with a Pearl Earring and Fantastic Mr. Fox. Recent Dutch productions are Bloed, zweet en tranen, Michiel de Ruyter en de western Brimstone. Since 2007 he has turned towards the museum world as an exhibition designer. Besides that he works on his own independent work.

At Todd van Hulzen Design it’s all about making unforgettable experiences and inspiring emotions such as admiration, amazement, and self recognition. We love to help people discover how awesome the world is.

The love of a museum for it’s collection is something we admire. We encourage clients to rediscover the beauty of their own missions. Yet, making an exhibition that is also an artistic sensation in itself is the designer’s valhalla. So let’s combine the two! 

Here’s a guide to a proper work strategy when making an exhibition:

  1. Immersion
    You begin designing a space by first immersing yourself in the content. Draw everything you can out of historic and scientific material. Draw connections and dare to make thematic leaps.
  2. Integration
    Make sure that you can unite as many exhibit elements as possible under one umbrella: graphics, multimedia, architecture, PR and story. Encourage as much cross-pollination as possible.
  3. Distillation
    Distill all the themes into one visual brand; if possible one that represents your narrative in a nutshell and one that visitors can have an emotional bond with.  Couple it to a slogan.
  4. Respect
    Value the building and its history and keep the unique mission of the institution in high regard. Don’t let an exhibition clash with its surroundings. Remember accessibility. 
  5. Visitor orientation
    Make sure the design answers basic questions of orientation:
    Where. Where am I? Where am I within the whole and what is my next step? (Give a clear structure)
    Why. Why am I here? What draws me onward. (Reward curiosity with amazement)
    What. What is the key question? (Make the raison-d’être of the exhibition apparent)
    How. How is my world view changing? (Effective means of communication)
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Contact

Please call or write for an appointment to see a presentation
+31 (0)626196137
todd@vanhulzen.com