Nike’s “Genealogy of Speed” is an exhibit less about archiving the past than about utilizing history to create a faster future. Nike Brand Design partnered with design agencies and architects in New York City and Venice Beach, California, to collaborate on the “Genealogy of Speed” exhibit spaces.

To tell this story, we created a family tree, filled with more than 250 of our most innovative products, and then focused on 30 products that spawned other successes, dating from before Nike was a company until today. Nike then asked our partners to help give this story dimension in two separate gallery spaces, each with common conceptual elements but regionally relevant distinctions.

The exhibits’ fundamental question was, “How does speed look in space”? In New York, we extruded and abstracted the family tree to create a bent steel wall communicating our innovations through time and space. Opposite and parallel to the bent wall, a smooth wall with recessed vents was created to showcase the individual products. In Venice Beach, we took the idea that speed exists around us at all times and made it visible. The speed lines raced along the ceiling and penetrated walls. The product then hung like fruit from these speed lines in interchangeable vitrines.