Before KM Design could arrange a single car inside VIK Cars Museum, the studio had to build the freight elevator that would let those cars reach the second floor at all. The museum occupies the upper level of a shopping center on the outskirts of Lviv, Ukraine, a site with no existing capacity to lift vehicles into place — a constraint that shaped the entire 1,500 sqm (16,146 sq ft) project before a single design decision about the interior itself. Completed in 2025 and led by KM Design, the museum now houses a private collection of vintage automobiles spanning more than a century.
That collection has its own displacement story behind it. The museum’s founder, an entrepreneur and co-owner of one of Ukraine’s largest supermarket chains, relocated from Dnipro to Lviv following the full-scale invasion, building a new family home there and transferring his classic car collection along with it — a personal archive that became, over time, the foundation for a public car museum.
A garage conversation led to Karina Mayer’s involvement in the project. “Our first conversation about cars happened while we were discussing the design of a garage for a private residence we were building for the client’s family. That’s when he realized that I had a strong sense of scale, a good understanding of different car models, and how they should be arranged in space,” says Karina Mayer, founder and chief designer of KM Design. “Although the studio mainly works with private interiors, I’m always interested in new formats. I saw the retro car museum as a professional challenge.”
The shopping center itself was chosen deliberately for this car museum in Lviv. Built seven years earlier, its second floor offers panoramic views over a ring road junction, while nearby European car dealerships create a surrounding context that reinforces the museum’s premise rather than working against it.
Two months separated the start of the project from opening day — a timeline tight enough that the team had to run design, construction, and the freight elevator for cars in parallel rather than in the conventional sequence of one phase following another.
Thirty-eight cars make up the collection on view, ranging from century-old models by the American brand Packard to the Ferrari Dino and a number of vehicles less than 30 years old. Rather than mixing eras freely, KM Design organized the exhibition by manufacturer, using that structure to let a century of automotive design read as a single, legible narrative instead of a scattered assortment.
Not a display case, but a stage was the guiding intention behind the museum’s lighting. “I wanted to create a stage for the cars — one where each exhibit, with its lines and curves, chrome details, and reflections, would receive maximum attention,” explains the designer. Accent spotlights are precisely aimed at individual vehicles, while linear car museum lighting design structures overhead guide visitors through the space; custom ceiling luminaires, produced by Vision Lighting, echo the form of an enlarged Mercedes-Benz star with its surrounding circle removed.
Zoning the space relies on glass partitions printed with op art patterns, metal panels with a textured relief surface, and terracotta-colored textile curtains, while the lounge area’s modular sofas — upholstered in genuine leather with refined stitching — reference the interiors of the classic cars on display around them. A wall installation built from car parts doubles as a photo backdrop, a detail that has made the museum a stop for car bloggers shooting content, not unlike how Joshua Vides turned an entire gallery into part of the exhibit itself at the Petersen Automotive Museum, treating the room as inseparable from the cars it holds.
At the center of the exhibition, a circular rotating platform sits beneath continuous, shadow-free overhead lighting — reserved for new acquisitions or a rotating “car of the month.” Nearby, a minimalist white reception desk carries a relief facade modeled on tire tracks pressed into asphalt, and the museum shop includes a custom table built from illuminated glass blocks, flanked by chairs that have become a favorite seat for visiting bloggers. Vintage arcade machines and a vinyl record player round out the retro atmosphere.
Designed as a self-sustaining business, the VIK Cars Museum also includes an event space equipped with a large LED screen, used for Lviv business club meetings, presentations, and fashion shows, and available for private rental and photo shoots.
The elevator built to solve a logistics problem now runs in the opposite direction each month, lifting a new arrival into place on the rotating platform below. “Working on this project gave me a deep appreciation for the craftsmanship of car designers from the past,” Karina Mayer concludes. “They created their models with such care and passion that these vehicles became true works of art — objects of desire worthy of being displayed in museums.”
VIK Cars Museum by KM Design | Location: Lviv, Ukraine — Year: 2025 — Key materials: glass, metal panels, terracotta textile, leather