Category Archives: Museums
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 [...]
Artefacts Series
learning from science and technology museums
Cases of science and technology museums that have pursued an explicit and strategic policy of collecting and exhibiting industrial arts and design are quite rare. One can mention the Národní technické muzeum (National Technical Museum) in Prague, which comprises collections of Industrial design and Consumer industry – the Museum is currently closed, under renovation, [...]
Industrial Design at the Canada Science
and Technology Museum, Ottawa
© photo Canada Science and Technology Museum, Ottawa
In 2009 the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa started a programme and strategy to collect and exhibit industrial design. While the programme is still under development, some points seem to be quite clear. As far as can be learned from the considerations made by the curatorial [...]
Museums and the Construction of Disciplines
Imagine we could make tabula rasa on Exhibition Road and – one century passed since their official separation in 1909 – start over, using the collections of both the Victoria and Albert and of the Science Museum to build a new museum “of design”. How would we arrange collections? What would we keep under the [...]
Designing Modern Germany
some considerations on the role of museums
Designing Modern Germany by Jeremy Aynsley, published this year, is a text full of information and based on an important set of sources and references. The study is lead by the will of the author to understand and make clear how «cultural difference can be acutely perceived through design» (ibid., p. 22). Concluding the Introduction, [...]
Multiple voices
Vienna, MAK
Discourses and voices on design are multiplying. Museums are no exceptions.
Consider for instance one European capital city like Vienna, where the MAK - Museum für Angewandte Kunst is acknowledged and renowned as a museum of design, but where other institutions – the Design Forum at Museum Quartier, the Möbel Museum, the Wien Museum and the [...]
Research on interactive exhibits
The Research on interactive exhibits, organised by the ScienceCenterNetzwerk, was held at the Technisches Museum Wien on May 25 and 26, 2009.
Download the Programme.
Just some notes on some lectures given on May 25.
The symposium opened with Ian Russell, from Interactive Science, who brought his practical experience proposing some considerations on Interactivity: «Where does “interactivity” start? [...]
