Author Archives:
>Observing [NY] Museums via designobserver
Recently, two articles have appeared in designobserver which – with totally different perspectives (that of a curator and that of a critic and visitor) – look through two renown New York institutions (MoMA and Cooper Hewitt), raising thoughtful reflections on the role and use of contemporary design museums.
The first article is by Barry Bergdoll, [...]
> Design Failures and Museums
«… designers [...] are judged more by their hits than by their misses. [...] Designing without fault is impossible,» wrote Henry Petroski in his Small Things Considered. Why There Is No Perfect Design, 2003.
Many of those who are interested in design and museums, sooner or later, wonder how a show dedicated to the design failures [...]
>Design archives and Archiving design
Archiving Design Organisations: A Design Archives seminar
6 June 2011, University of Brighton
Curators, scholars and students meet on June 6, 2011, to discuss the issues of “Archiving Design Organisations”. Funded by the Design History Society, the seminar is held at the University of Brighton, whose Design Archives hold the archives design organisations such as Design Council, [...]
Gavina: Lampi di Design
exhibition, MAMbo, Bologna
«This exhibition provides a platform of enquiry that offers a clear and simple reading, for further critical studies, taking on board something which for Gavina was always a necessary condition: keeping up with his time.»
With these words Elena Brigi and Daniele Vincenzi present the exhibition, of which they are curators, Dino Gavina: Lampi di Design [...]
Museums, Design and Social Change
“Social change” seems to be the key word, and key issue, for design museums.
The next European Museum Network Conference promoted by the Vitra Design Museum (MUSCON 2010), taking place in London at the end of October, not only aims at enhancing and improving connections and cooperative relationships between museums of design, art and architecture, but [...]
>Reflections on a design museum for Japan
Journalist Edan Corkill, in “The Japan Times”, offers some reflections on what a design museum in Japan could be. Writing about the exhibition Design: ’60s vs. ’00s, organized by D-8, the Japan Design Association Meeting, held at Mikimoto Hall in Tokyo’s Ginza district, Corkill not only describes the sections of it but reports extracts of [...]
Design, childhood, museums
V&A Childhood Museum, London
I recently visited the V&A Museum of Childhood in London, Bethnal Green. Compared to “children museums”, where the participatory quality and the active engagements of kids is predominant, the Museum of Childhood has a more complex nature due to its history and to the history of its collections. In fact, the museum in Bethnal Green [...]
On Exhibition Design
from The Design Journal
In recent years, design museums, design in museums, and museum design are all topics that have attracted growing interest from scholars and professionals: on the one hand, the issues related to the musealisation of design and to design museums, on the other hand the issues raised by exhibition design and by the use of design [...]
