Stevns Klint Experience

Client: Stevns Klint ExperienceExhibition design: Tinker imagineersSet construction: GielissenAV hardware: MansveldInteractives & animations: ShoshoAudio: Stijn HosmanLighting design: BeersNielsenIllustrations wallpaper: Tinker imagineersIllustrations children’s layer: MonnikenwerkArchitect: Praksis ArkitekterPhotos website: Mike Bink, Steen Gyldendal, Tinker imagineersProject video: Joris Verleg

The Stevns Klint area at the Danish south coast is one of the best places in the world to see traces of the asteroid that caused a mass extinction 66 million years ago. The 17-km-long Stevns cliffs are UNESCO World Heritage since 2014. There, in the old lime quarry of Boesdal, the Stevns Klint Experience emerged. The aim was to create a world-class attraction, in terms of both architecture and experience. Tinker was commissioned to develop an exhibition about the extinction, its effects, and the scientific discovery of the traces left by the asteroid.

The Stevns Klint Hall plays an immersive film about the dramatic extinction and the survival of life on Earth, with images partly projected on a huge cut-out of the cliff with the Fish Clay layer in the middle. Visitors see up close where and how the asteroid left its traces. In the World Heritage Hall, the whole story is told chronologically. The room is divided into three smaller zones where the visitor is led through time and space. From what the world looked like 66 million years ago to the time when the asteroid hit the Earth. The third zone is about how life on Earth recovered and evolved. 

Part of the exhibits focus on the scientific side of the story. How the world-renowned geologist Walter Alvarez found out what happened all those years ago because of the samples he took at Stevns Klint. Or about other places where this kind of evidence can be found and whether such mass extinction could happen again. Furnishings and design were inspired by the debris that flies around after the impact of an asteroid. The lively illustrations on the wallpaper present a contrast to its monumental design and add some softness and poetry to the space.