In 2004/2005 I was engaged by Hüttinger Exhibition Engineering to work on English texts for the roughly 200 exhibits in the new Phaeno science centre. My KollegInnen in Germany were Dorit Ponater and Prof. Otto Lührs, seen in the picture below.
Ordinary exhibit texts
The original plan was that I should write texts for half of the exhibits in English and that a German writer should write remaining texts half in German. Translators would then translate all of the texts, and then the German writer and I would polish the translations in our mother tongues.
In practice, the job worked out rather differently. Firstly, polishing a text that had been translated from the German was often harder than writing the text from scratch in English. Secondly, the information that we had about the exhibits (which were being built by half-a-dozen different contractors) was sketchy and often inaccurate.
In the end, Dorit, Otto and I did extensive work on the texts in front of the exhibits themselves in Wolfsburg. Very often we had to completely discard any existing drafts, and we became rather good at composing texts simultaneously in German and English. Of course it helped that Dorit and Otto had pretty good English, and it turned out that my O-level German had not all disappeared either.
Supplementary texts
After the job above was finished, I was asked to write 20 "slot texts" - somewhat longer supplementary texts for exhibits. For these texts, I could write anything I liked that I thought would be interesting that was related to the exhibit.
What is Phaeno like?
Phaeno is very much a traditional science centre, with lots of classic exhibits and some interesting scientific artworks. Unlike many modern science centres, it doesn't feel the need to dress the exhibits up in "scenery". In fact, quite the opposite - I find the ubiquitous greyness a little bit dull. But by showing its exhibits for what they are, it shows that it is not ashamed to be a science centre, an attitude of which I heartily approve.
Phaeno has been very successful, with more than the predicted number of visitors in its first year, which is pretty good going by any standards.
Some pictures from Phaeno
Phaeno from the outside. The building was designed by architect Zaha Hadid. This picture shows it in good weather, when it looks quite smart, but when the skies are grey and the concrete wet, it looks rather dismal. Inside, it is very striking - almost none of the internal walls are vertical (see the picture above). However, in my opinion the building is completely upstaged by...
...the enormous neighbouring 1930's Volkswagen factory. Most of Wolfsburg is dreary, but the view from this side is full of interest, with the busy Düsseldorf-Hannover-Berlin railway passing right next to Phaeno, and a large canal between the railway and the factory.