Jan Spoerri, a designer and builder of interactive museum exhibits, died at home on Cedar Street in East Hampton on April 7. He was 54 and had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, 11 months earlier.
Born on May 9, 1965, in Manhattan, he split his days between the downtown loft studio of his father, Max Spoerri, and the Greenwich Village apartment of his mother, Peggy Scott Hammond. In East Hampton, his childhood was spent at an old farmhouse on Cedar Street, where he both lived and worked as an adult, having built a studio and workshop in a dairy barn at the back of the property.
His family said that Mr. Spoerri absorbed much of the political and creative energy that surrounded him in New York City and East Hampton, but that his own creative path found its expression in interactive displays for children and adults alike. In these exhibits, his goal was to communicate complex scientific concepts in a fun and engaging way, tapping into museum visitors’ curiosity, visual learning, and tactile senses. His own children, Evan, Liam, and Nina, were active participants in the process.
Mr. Spoerri attended P.S. 41 downtown in the Village, East Hampton Middle School, the Scattergood Friends School in West Branch, Iowa, and New York University. During his early years, he was taken along on the road with his stepfather, the blues musician John Hammond. This exposed him to museums around the world, leading to his later career interests as well as a global view.
At Scattergood, he made lasting friendships and expanded on Quaker ideas that he had been taught by his mother and grandfather Albert Scott, who was among a small group of pacifists who were sent to prison for refusing to take part in the draft following the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.
At N.Y.U., Mr. Spoerri majored in physics, and graduated with honors. He decided against continuing in the university’s graduate program because of its past involvement with the military.
In 1990, he started Jan Spoerri and Co. Exhibitry in East Hampton. His many projects included exhibits for the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, the Maryland Science Museum, the Port Royal Sound Nature Center in South Carolina, Rookery Bay Everglades Nature Center in Naples, Fla., and Roger Williams Park in Providence, R.I.
After Robbie Braun, an exhibit builder himself, joined Spoerri and Co., many of the firm’s projects were created in conjunction with Keith Helmetath and Co. of New York City.
One of Mr. Spoerri’s final jobs was for the Ample Hills Visitors Center in Brooklyn, which recently won an award for its references to Brooklyn history. In 2018, he made a new cornice for an 1812 Boston landmark, the Edward Everett House, out of African mahogany and copper. Toward the end of his life, he was in the process of restoring a terracotta silo and its dome, in stainless steel, behind his workshop; the 1930s structure is one of East Hampton’s few examples of its 20th-century agricultural past.
The family had a philosophical tradition, especially about death and other serious matters. From his maternal grandmother, “We will all meet again, dancing with the immortals on the Elysian Fields,” his mother recalled.
In addition to his children, Mr. Spoerri is survived by his wife, Lorena Alban, his sisters, Emilia Spoerri of East Hampton, Marlene Spoerri of New York City, Anneke Spoerri of New York City, and Amy Hammond of East Hampton; a brother, Paul Hammond of Charlotte, N.C., and his parents. A plan for a celebration of his life will be announced at the end of the coronavirus quarantine.
