Art, Architecture and Product: One whole

For door manufacturer DORSIS, we designed an exhibition installation at Prague’s Bold Gallery that brought together door systems, architecture and works by Radka Bodzewicz. Instead of a conventional product presentation, we created two moving objects in which art, product and space naturally intertwined.

When DORSIS asked us to prepare a presentation of their doors at Bold Gallery, we knew from the start what we did not want to do: place several door frames in the gallery, hang different types of doors in them and explain the technical specifications next to each one.

Doors are actually quite an ungrateful exhibit. A conventional door leaf does not show you much when you simply look at it. It becomes interesting once it starts to move.

So instead of designing a product display, we began thinking about an installation in which three things would intertwine: product, art and architecture. None of them was meant to become merely a backdrop for the others.

Doors That Are More Than Doors

DORSIS did not specify a particular product. The choice of door systems was up to us, so we looked for solutions that could demonstrate more than a surface finish or a detail of the frame. We chose two different principles: a sliding system opening automatically via a motion sensor, and pivot doors whose individual panels rotate in sync.

For the two separate rooms of Bold Gallery, we designed two substantial self-supporting frames. Not walls with doors attached to them, but freestanding objects placed directly into the gallery space.Even the first study worked with coloured and translucent surfaces layered over one another as the doors moved. We wanted to use what the mechanisms could actually do rather than hide the technology behind the installation.

Movement as Part of the Image

Movement became one of the main elements of the design. In the sliding system, individual panels move across one another. With the pivot doors, the panels rotate and their relationship changes depending on where you stand. That led us to the idea that movement did not have to transform only the doors. It could transform the artwork itself.

Together with Radka Bodzewicz, we selected two of her bold paintings and divided them across the individual door panels. As the doors opened, fragments of the works overlapped, separated and came back together again. The image was never exactly the same. And the door mechanism stopped being merely a technical solution. It began to determine how the artwork was perceived in space.

Art Is Not Decoration

From the beginning, we knew we did not want to place a product in the gallery and simply hang a few paintings around it. The art was not supposed to become a colourful backdrop for the doors, and the doors were not supposed to become an unusual support for the paintings. We wanted the two to merge. We work with a similar principle in interiors. If art is considered from the beginning, architecture can develop together with it instead of looking for an empty wall once everything else is finished. We wrote more about this in Art in the Interior: When It Becomes Part of the Architecture. Here, however, we went one step further: the art connected not only with the space, but directly with the product and its movement.

We selected the artist together with Bold Gallery, and it quickly became clear that this kind of collaboration is not automatic. The first artist we approached was not interested in connecting fine art with a commercial product. With Radka Bodzewicz, it was the exact opposite. She was completely open to us working further with her paintings, splitting them into separate sections and allowing them to change through the movement of the doors. That is why the result was not an exhibition where art and product simply stood next to each other. It became one installation.

The Whole Installation Stood on Red

Even before choosing the specific paintings, we knew we did not want a neutral installation. From the beginning, we were interested in reds, oranges, transparency and layers of colour. This direction was already clear in the original concept, which worked with overlapping translucent surfaces and coloured layers. The final selection of Radka Bodzewicz’s works anchored that direction. When choosing the exact shade, we compared different reds directly with the paintings. In the end, not only the large frames but the entire door structures became red.

For us, this meant stepping slightly outside our usual colour palette. In our projects, we generally work with a more restrained range of colours. Here, however, a neutral frame simply did not make sense. We did not want to calm the expressive paintings down. We wanted to add another expressive layer. The red frame, red door structures, fragments of painting and movement became one whole.

Product Without the Trade-Fair Effect

DORSIS needed to present doors. That did not mean the result had to look like a conventional product display. The technology did not disappear from the installation. Quite the opposite. The sliding system was interesting precisely because its movement transformed the painting. The pivot doors created constantly changing views as they rotated, while the automatic opening introduced another layer of dynamics. The product did not become less important because it was not displayed as a sample. Its function became the basis of the entire concept. For us, this is the essential difference between presenting a product and creating a spatial concept for a brand. You do not necessarily need to put a product in the middle of the room and say: look, this is what we sell. It can become part of something that works in its own right.

Four Parties, One Whole

The final installation was created through the collaboration of four different parties: DORSIS as the manufacturer, Radka Bodzewicz as the artist, Bold Gallery and OOOOX as the authors of the spatial concept. None of them was supposed to become merely a supplier for the others. The gallery was not just a rented room. The art was not decoration. The doors were not a product catalogue. And architecture was not there simply to arrange everything neatly. Each part had its own role while depending on the others.

The resulting installation became part of the exhibition Gateway to Other Worlds at Bold Gallery. For the opening night, we pushed the atmosphere one step further. The gallery was darkened and mist surrounded the red frames. It worked beautifully, but it was only the final layer of the presentation. The concept itself did not depend on the effect, and both objects remained part of the exhibition throughout its duration. In the end, all the elements came together without any of them having to step aside for another. The exhibition still worked as an exhibition of Radka Bodzewicz’s art, and her paintings did not disappear behind the product. At the same time, the DORSIS door systems were not merely technical accessories – their movement was one of the elements that created the installation itself. A gallery visitor did not need to know that they were looking at a presentation by a door manufacturer. An architect or designer, on the other hand, could clearly see what the individual systems were capable of.

That is what we liked most about the result. Nothing felt as though it had been added to the exhibition afterwards. Art, product and space came together naturally.

od Radky - 26. 8. 2026