Center of Islamic Civilization, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

The Center of Islamic Civilization in Tashkent is one of the largest cultural, scientific and educational complexes in Uzbekistan: a national landmark beneath a 65-metre dome that brings together museum galleries, research laboratories, a library and educational programmes around the Mushaf of Uthman, inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. More than 1,500 specialists from 40 countries contributed to it. Inside, the story runs from the region's pre-Islamic heritage to the present day, told through artefacts, reconstructions and large-scale immersive media created with Sila Sveta.

BeWunder was commissioned by Sila Sveta as turnkey contractor for both the physical build and the full multimedia integration across several exhibition areas, including the Main Hall and the Immersive Tunnel. Our innovation is a delivery model. It removes the most fragile point in any immersive cultural project: the handover between the people who build the space and the people who make it come alive.

One contract, one line of responsibility

On most museum projects, scenic fabrication and AV integration are separate packages. The interface between them, projection surfaces, mounting points, cable routes, service access, equipment cooling and sightlines, is where creative intent quietly erodes. At the Center, BeWunder held both sides. The same team that delivered the drywall, scenic elements and mounting structures also supplied, installed and integrated the audio, video, lighting, projection, media servers and show control. Every wall was built knowing exactly what it had to carry, hide or reflect.

Engineering the vision before building it

Our involvement began upstream, with concept assistance and value engineering. We translated Sila Sveta's creative intent into detailed design and engineering: buildable structures, maintainable systems, and hardware specifications that protected the experience while respecting the budget of a state institution. Technology and scenic geometry were resolved together, not one after the other.

Technology that disappears into the story

The galleries ask visitors to feel history rather than read it. Geometric patterns drawn from Islamic ornament flow across the floor in light, panoramic friezes glow with narrative imagery, a luminous glass monument and a cascade of light anchor the space, and life-size digital portraits appear inside arched niches that echo Timurid architecture. None of it works if the visitor notices the machinery. Equipment was planned into the scenography, not bolted onto it, and lighting was balanced so that media, artefacts and architecture read as one composition, with the technology serving the narrative.

Integrated with the building, not added to it

A museum of this scale is a busy, multi-trade site. BeWunder managed site execution and cross-trade coordination, including alignment with MEP, so that the exhibition systems became part of the building's own infrastructure. That matters long after opening day. A national institution needs galleries that can be operated and maintained for decades, not a show held together by workarounds.

One show, many zones

Audio, video, lighting, projection, interactive displays and immersive elements are tied into a single show-control environment, giving coordinated operation across every zone. Interactive moments live inside the same architecture as the wider galleries, not as separate islands of technology. Every system was tested and commissioned before handover.

Cultural institutions increasingly want the emotional power of immersive media without giving up the dignity of heritage. The Center shows how that can be delivered at monumental scale: a creative studio free to design at full ambition, and a turnkey partner accountable for making every element buildable, integrated and reliable. The Center opened to the public in March 2026 and was named by the Prix Versailles among the World's Most Beautiful Museums 2026.

For BeWunder, the project proves that the gap between a studio's vision and a finished cultural space can be closed by design, by treating construction and technology as one discipline from the first drawing to the final cue.