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 as a conceptual and practical tool to design museum and museum experience.
In this last sense, it is noteworthy to mention an article written by Alice Lake-Hammond, free lance designer, and Noel Waite, University of Otago (New Zealand): Exhibition Design: Bridging the Knowledge Gap, published in the latest issue of “The Design Journal” (edited by Paul Atkinson, vol. 13, n. 1, pp. 77-98).
As the abstract reads, in this article the authors consider «the changing role of exhibition design and its contribution to the interpretation in the increasingly audience-centred museum environment». To do so, they investigate the case study of the Museum of New Zealand/Te Papa Tongarewa, its new design and strategy, as a good example of how designers were involved at different stages – exhibitions concept plan, architecture, exhibition design etc. – and did contribute in developing the museum experience, finally helping to «bridge the gap» between expert knowledge and visitors. No surprise, Ralph Appelbaum, the award winning designer and a leader in the field of interpretive museum design, was involved in this project.
Not only do Lake-Hammond and Waite examine the case study, but they trace an historical framework about the development of exhibition design and the changing role of designers in museums, providing good references to existing literature both of museum studies and design studies.
Moreover, they conclude the paper with «a preliminary map of the key interpretive design considerations of concepts, contexts and narratives as a guide to the exhibition design process in contemporary museums», in order to enhance the dialogue between designers and curators and the involvement and participation of designers in the concept and contents development.
The design process model they advance – which is also illustrated via diagrams – regards concepts, contexts and narratives as three major aspects that should be considered to develop a strong interpretive design and where designers can help curators and museum professionals.
In the very last sentence the authors state that in «an information-saturated world, there is a growing need for articulate communicators to help us understand our past, integrate new knowledge and inspire new ways of seeing our future, and we would argue that the field of exhibition design is one place they can reliably be found».
Indeed they are right. What would be interesting to ponder about additionally, however, is whether and to what extent design curators and design museums have reached this kind of awareness. If one looks at the museum world as a whole and at the advancements in museum studies, it is true that in general «[w]here once the curator was the sole keeper of expert knowledge, the contemporary exhibition process has become a collaborative effort involving curators, designers, educators, technicians and, increasingly the audience themselves».
Yet, this truth seems to turn into an exception when one looks at some design museums and design exhibitions, where, to use Eilean Hooper-Greehnill’s words, it seems the modernist transmission model of communication still prevails.[1]

Note
[1] Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Changing Values in the Art Museum. Rethinking Communication and Learning, in Museum Studies. An Anthology of Contexts, ed. by Bettina Messias Carbonell, Malden, MA, Blackwell Publishing, 2004, pp. 556-575.

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, to be reopened by Autumn 2010. Or the Powerhouse Museum, major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, in Sydney, whose motto/logo reads “science+design”, and where design is not only considered in terms of decorative arts and furniture design (under the Design and Society curatorial department), but is also considered as product design (under the Science and Industry curatorial department). At the Science and Technology Museum in Shanghai, an entire section, The Cradle of Designers, is devoted to design, allowing people to discover computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacture (CAM) and to experiment designing and manufacturing. Moreover, as mentioned before in this blog, in 2009 the Science Museum in London and the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa decided to include design in their mission (see here and here).
Besides these cases, the tradition and the current panorama of science and technology museums already have lots to offer to the museology and museography of design, and to culture of design.
Consider, for example, the artefacts studies and researches developed by curators and scholars like those that are collected in the series of publications Artefacts: Studies in History of Science and Technology.
The result of the collaboration of the Science Museum in London, the Deutsches Museum in Munich, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, this series aims at exploring innovative approaches to the «object-oriented historiography of science and technology», beyond the «strict technical description of artefacts on the one hand, and an overly broad social history on the other» – as the Series Preface reads.
Each year an Artefact conference is held, where curators as well as science and technology scholars and historians share ideas on diverse topics – London’s Science Museum hosted the 14th edition in 2009, Canada Science and Technology Museum will host the 15th. These conferences also offer the occasion to attend workshops, working on artefacts’ interpretation, and in the end to select some papers for the publications.
So far the series – which is currently edited by Robert Bud, Science Museum, Bernard Finn, Smithsonian Institution, and Helmut Trischler, Deutsches Museum – include the following issues, each of them having special curators: Manifesting Medicine: Bodies and Machines, ed. by Robert Bud, Bernard Finn, Helmuth Trischler, Amsterdam, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999; Exposing Electronics, ed. by Bernard Finn, with Robert Bud, Helmuth Trischler, Amsterdam, Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000; Tackling Transport, ed. by Helmuth Trischler, Stefan Zeilinger, London, Science Museum, 2003; Materializing the Military, ed. by Bernard Finn, Barton C. Hacker, London, Science Museum, 2005; Presenting Pictures, ed. by Robert Bud, Bernard Finn, Helmuth Trischler, London, Science Museum, 2005 (see also the review in “Journal of Design History”, vol. 18, 2005, n. 3, pp. 307-309); Showcasing Space, ed. by Martin Collins, Douglas Millard, London, Science Museum, 2006; Illuminating Instruments, ed. by Peter Morris, Washington DC, Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press; next one should be on musical instruments.

«There is no room here for the objects», complained Bernard Finn, introducing the second volume of the series, making reference to the little attention historians of technology still paied to the study of artifacts. And he pointed to the objectives of the publications:

«Our goal is to persuade other historians that artefacts are fruitful sources of inspiration and of evidence, which might help persuade them to pay more attention to the collections we have so carefully accumulated in our museums».[1]

Against the risk that even the history and interpretation of technology in museums put the artifacts in the background, in favour of the study of literature and texts, Finn recalled the method of archaeologists, for whom the objects are the primary source of information and evidence, and he reminded the different values and opportunities arising from the artefacts study: from inspiration, which may come from direct contact with objects and their physical and material analysis that can reveal information beyond literature, up to the study design and the “style” of technology.

Indeed, what is interesting to notice is that, while the authors do not focus exclusively on design, many of the papers included in the series actually investigate histories and addess topics which also deal with design history and issues. One may argue that precisely because they are not interested in making statements on “good design” (whatever it means), and because they draw from systemic approaches for the analysis of technology and from material culture and archeology methods to study the artefacts, the authors explore histories well beyond the object per se, by analysing the contexts of conception and design, the systems of production and sale, of use and consumption of various products, from prostheses to automobiles, from computer to weapons.
To put it in the words of Tomás Maldonado, some of these papers look at both sides of that dialectic relationship «between needs and objects, between production and consumption», at the «focal point» where industrial design really happens.[2]
Artefacts series: worth reading…

Notes

[1] Bernard Finn, in Exposing Electronics, ed. by Bernard Finn, with Robert Bud, Helmuth Trischler, Amsterdam, Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000, p. 1.
[2] Tomás Maldonado, Disegno industriale: un riesame, new ed., Milano, Feltrinelli, 1991 (1st ed. 1976), pp. 14-15.

© 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 staff, this case promise to lay a significant example for science and technology museums that will aim to engage with design. Moreover, it will certainly contribute in elaborating and spreading the culture of design among a wider public, advancing approaches and facing issues which may be rather different from those to which art museums and design museums have accustomed us.

I had the chance to interview Anna Adamek, appointed Curator of Natural Resources and Industrial Design, who shared her ideas and vision for the future of industrial design at the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

Museums of science and technology preserve and even exhibit objects of design, and they often deal with issues which are relevant for design history and practice. But cases of science and technology museums explicitly dealing with design are quite rare if not unique. Why did you decide to start a specific program for collecting and exhibiting industrial design?
One of our aim at the CSTM is to keep technology and society together in our interpretations, but that still leaves the creative process of design, a crucial element, missing. In the recent past we have been conducting sporadic research on design of technological objects for a while – for instance the design of locomotives, the design of carriages that were intended to be used by ladies or by gentlemen, the use of green colour in medicine, industrial transfers, decals placed on ships and railway to display corporate identity of the companies that owned them, etc. etc. So even though we conducted this research in unsystematic way, we did it because we felt that there was something missing in the interpretation of technologies.

Your position reads “Curator of Natural Resources and Industrial Design”. Why are these areas kept together?
We do operate in an institutional structure, and it is not easy to change jobs to incorporate a new collection area. As the former curator of the Energy and Natural Resources retired, it gave us an opportunity to redefine the job, to include ID. It was a purely organizational opportunity. Of course, the fact that ID is incorporated into one curator’s job and is juxtaposition with Natural Resources may pose some problems – for instance, the curator may not be seen as an expert on the topic (but I would never claim to be!). But I think that there are also some advantages: this merger of two subject areas represents the basic philosophical approach that we would like to take, that is to say that the creative process of ID is present in every aspect of technology, and that we will not separate it from technological artifacts; it shows that we perceive ID as more than esthetics; it allows us to be eclectic and not to fall under one “-ism”; we can form partnership with the industry and with academia to enrich our interpretation while telling a story that goes beyond design; we can cooperate with design museums and enrich our exhibits and theirs.

Because you are a science and technology museum, I guess your program will not just deal with lamps and furniture pieces, instead you will try to investigate relationships of design and technology. Can you tell me something about the approach you intend to adopt?
I absolutely agree with you that we have to move beyond “furniture.” My understanding of ID is as yours – the crossroad between technologies and society. Every technology is designed. It is quite fascinating to look at the development of mining drills from the ID point of view. It can certainly be a starting point to tell a story, and it would bring a very human element in a complicated machine that may even be considered boring by visitors. Can you imagine us inviting the visitors to: “Come and see an exhibit on drilling technologies!” We would get crowds no doubt… Yet, if you look at the fact that these machines are changing because of the enormous strain that they put on the people that use them, and some changes are actually made because of a very controversial involvement of Canadian mining companies in Africa – you get a very different story.

How will you interpret and exhibit design objects and industrial design? Will you include and integrate design objects and stories within existing exhibitions? Which kind of problems this approach can bring?
This is really difficult: there is a limit of 40-60 words per panel. Interpretative planner rewrites our texts, and public program people argue that the ideas are too difficult for our main public, families with children. Anything that is on the floor is a result of creative struggles, arguments and negotiations between museum departments. It is very important in my opinion to remember that Museums are not only about exhibiting. We collect, preserve, document, interpret and exhibit. That is really a crucial point that lots of people seem to be forgetting. It is important to ask what is the best medium to record and disseminate research on ID. It could be an exhibit floor, but it also could be an article, a conference paper, an internal research paper that is kept in the artifact file and accessible to researchers it could be element of an acquisition proposal that describe reasons behind an acquisition of an object for the collection; it could be library collection; it could be a web site. Even if these have different visibility and different audiences, all these ways of interpretation are in my opinion equal to the exhibit floor. They also do not exclude each other. In my opinion ID interpretation should be included in every step of curatorial work not only in the exhibit interpretation. Then even if we only say 40 words on design of an object in an exhibit, we still have a body of research available for the audiences interested in in-depth interpretation. Also when the data on ID is recorded in various steps that we take in the process of documentation, when the objects goes on the exhibit floor it will be much easier to apply the ID lens to its interpretation. I see a bit of challenge here though. I would not want the ID to become another box that needs to be checked, next to gender, multiculturalism, aboriginals – being very politically correct we have lots of this boxes in Canada… I am hoping to convince other curators to incorporate it to their philosophical approach rather than treat it as an element of documentation.
I want to raise one last point. Museum professionals believe that we can tell every story through an exhibit, every topic can be well expressed and explained in an exhibit. For a very long time we accepted this as true and we do not questions our assumption. But in my opinion, it is time to very seriously ask ourselves if the exhibit floor is the right medium for all topics. Perhaps some topics do not work under the limitations imposed by exhibits, or work better when expressed in a different format?

How do you plan to work in the next months or years?
I plan to be actively involved in acquisitions, but to act as a support for exhibits and research. I actually want to come up with a list of items that we should purchase because of their design. I also want to encourage other curators to incorporate the ID into their acquisition proposals. To do this, I will have to do a bulk of work, provide them with a template, and perhaps even write these parts of proposals myself, which may be time consuming, but is important. Research – I would like to set up a research plan with each curator and hire an ID student every year to conduct this research in our collections. I hope that I can convince a company to establish an internship or a scholarship. If we cannot get some funding for a student, I would suggest that each curator and assistant devotes some time in their workplan to ID research for the next 5 years until we build a body of knowledge. Exhibits – once we have research – it will be easy to incorporate it into exhibits. I cannot propose a large exhibit on ID for a good few years: we do not have the research done, we already have a very busy exhibit schedule and we do not have the money for another large exhibit (we can do 1 every 2 years).

Are you also considering to contact consultants (as design scholars or design curators) or to establish partnerships with other institutions dealing with design?
As I mentioned, partnership is very important. I would love to have design researchers here (depends on funds). I hope that in a near future we can have an ID exhibit on loan from another institution. Interpreting ID in a science and tech museum does not equal a lesser degree of understanding of ID, because ID experts will be involved alongside historians of technology.

What do you think about “boundaries” between museums and identities of museums?
I would happily argue with any curator from a design museum that we cannot separate design from technology, and that all the elements of ID are present in every pieces of technology that we have. The more public hears about design in various venues the more they learn.

photo: © Design Museum Holon

On January 31, 2010, the Design Museum in Holon, Israel, will be inaugurated. Actually, the building will open its doors, while another six weeks will be needed for the opening of the first exhibition.
During my PhD research, on October 27, 2009, I had the opportunity to interview Galit Gaon, who is the Creative Director of the Museum.
Although it is too early to make any evaluation of the overall project, and although it is the iconic architecture by Ron Arad Associates that is taking most of the attention so far – an architecture which «could be featured on a postage stamp», as the architects were required – it seems that Gaon and her staff definitely did not miss to ponder on the museological program and the curatorial approach.

May we start from the architecture? Reading the press release, it seems this was the starting point, wasn’t it?
I am involved in this museum from last summer; the project was from Ron Arad Architects, there were two people involved in this project, one is Asa Bruno and the other is Daniel Charny who is now a curator in the Design Museum [London], but at that time was working with Asa, and they were writing the program for the museum, there was no curator involved. So the program was based on different design museums they have visited, and the conclusions they had from their visits, and they started about the museum… so there was no curatorial questions at the moment. Of course, contemporary design was scheduled very early, as have international exhibitions, travelling exhibitions, and also original exhibitions. But this is so general, we could have designed anything after this sentence.

Have you already a vision of the position of the museum in the “museum world”?
No, not yet, because it is not open. We know the position on the architectural side. Not yet in the curatorial side, and I think it will take us 5 years to understand where we stand in the line of design museums. In architectural side, we should be the only museum for design ,the building is specifically designed for this, it is not an old building or different house, it is a museum designed to be a design museum, which means that the architecture is designed to be a part of the museum.

Like the Vitra…
Ok, Vitra Design Museum of course was designed to be a design museum, but Vitra was at the beginning a museum for traveling exhibitions and was not sponsored by the municipality or with public money, it was a private museum. I am talking about public museums, not the private, commercial ones.

How are the interiors organized, I saw cafe space and galleries from the renderings?
Yes we have a coffee shop and the museums store, and then we have very small space, where we will exhibit the process of the architecture, from the project to the architecture itself. We have movies, and of course documentation of the architecture day by day, sketches, clear grounds, foundations, and so on, and this is going to be a permanent exhibition about the museum. Then we have a space which is not completed at the moment for permanent collection exhibition.

Do you also have contacts with Israeli designers, archives, libraries?
Yes we do, it is very important that we keep very close connections with designers. There are no private collections, just designers who may have their collections in the studios, and we’re in connection with the 2 archives in Israel, one is the Digital archive of design, held by Shenkar, which is an academy of design and fashion, and the other is an archive/collection which is inside the Israel Museum.

So there is the will to be a representative for Israeli design?
Yes in the archive, yes.

I read you are connected with the Holon Institute of Technology, is it so?
Today [October 27, 2009] we start a course in the HIT, in the Industrial design department, and they are having a course with a professor, which aim is to develop educational programs for the museum, so we will have group of design students (2nd and 3rd year) working with us from today and on towards developing programs for education, and guiding tours inside the museum, because we believe designers should be involved in the museum, in all aspects of the museum; so we could have students working in the museum, guiding tours, working with children, and all other jobs, form being assistants for curators or in archive; so this relationship is very important for us.

So the target for the museum include students, children… Is this something related to the Children museum and the approach you have there?
No, not at all, the Children Museum is a permanent exhibition, which is very emotional very experimental, to experience the world of nature and dream. We are not working with young children, we are going to work with youth, aged from 12.

Has design gained recognition in Israel or is it still a field to be promoted?
It depends on whom you talk and ask. For designers, it is not there yet, we haven’t achieved all our goals and recognition of the work of designers. If you talk to people in the street, they say “yes of course, we know design, we use designers etc.”, and we can read about design in magazines; what we are not doing yet, and we would like to do it more, one of our mission, is to make industries in Israel to use designers, to understand that design is part of the R&D development, and not just styling at the end of the product. This is very a serious job we have to do.

Probably, you would not believe it, but, differently from what people can imagine, in Italy we may have the same problem. Besides the myth of Italian design, or the idea of design in Italy being just around the corner, people’s awareness about design and the value of design is really lacking, as it is the public recognition from the government or public institutions – quite a different situation from UK, where, anyway, they would probably say the same…
It is true. Italy… there is a notion of… maybe because Italian design was a leader in some areas, and maybe if you look in Milan, but that’s it. And it is the same in Israel. If you ask designers, they say, “yes we have a good community of designers but nobody takes us to work”; industries are not using our forces, and we have to work harder. I think we, in the museum, we will talk about the design approach to the general public. ‘Cause I think if people would go into the museum, and then go outside, and then they have a second look at their cars, their house, or the bag they are going to buy for their kids, and then say “ok, I have another criteria to consider when I am buying things, not just beauty or color, maybe I know something about design”, about function, materials, technology, human scale, so maybe slowly we will make people use design better.

So you will talk about different strands of design, from architecture to fashion, to technology etc.?
Exactly. And the museum, in our vision, is going to be about questions, and not about answers. I think that a museum is a place to have a good fight, intellectual fights. These days is wrong to have a museum that says this this is “good”… A museum is a place where to debate, and people can be a part of it. Not just go through the exhibition and then home, just thinking “Ok I did that”.

… and maybe just before going home buy something in the museum shop!
Yes, this is it.

This is interesting for me, since my research’s aim is to shift attention towards the model of science and technology museums, where, of course, they have their “hall of fames” and inventors, but they also started discussing long ago on how to raise questions and how to deal with controversies, concerning for instance the relationship between technology and society, or the environment.
Yes. But Science museums, at least in Israel, are becoming a place full of buttons to push, and this is not a debate.

You are right, I usually do not consider science centers. So, about the first exhibition: I heard about story-telling, will this be the approach?
Since this museum will be about questions, and focusing our interest into the curators, into the people who gather together objects to tell stories. Curators, the storytellers: usually the curators are in the back, the put together the objects, and then people see these. We would like to take people through the story, we would like people to understand the reasons why curators chose the objects, the connections they had in their mind. Why did you put this chair beside this table? What do they mean together? What would you like people to feel when they walk into the exhibition? This is one of the core of the museum, to work with curators that have an agenda, that have something to say, and not just a collection of “the best of Philippe Starck”…

Also, I do not know if you ever saw exhibitions curated by designers about themselves, you enter and you cannot understand…
… anything. Yes, we saw a lot of them in Israel. Because curators are mediators – I think this is the right word – between the public and whatever is happening in the museum. And people need better explanation, to be taken by their hand, and walk with them along the exhibition, and make them enjoy it, make them feel happy, sad, or something, just make them feel a part of the museum, of this experience.

The 4 curators are working there?*
No, they came here and saw the museum, so they know size, space etc., but they are working all around the world, in Europe, China, South Africa.

They work together or there will be 4 sections?
They work together, they send each other images etc. By the middle of march 2010 will open the exhibition, while we have an opening of the building end of January, then we close the building, to install the exhibition, and then open again.

* Curators for the first exhibition will be: «Mrs Barbara Bloemink - former Head Curator for Cooper Hewitt and Mad, Mr. Eric Chen, Creative Director 100% Design Shanghai and journalist (New York Times, The Art Newspaper, Surface.), Ms Julie Lasky - ex Editor in chief I.D. Magazine and Mr. Garth Walker, graphic designer and curator (South Africa)», see DMH’s press announcement.

Some months ago, I found online and read an interesting paper by Esther Cleven, curator of the Graphic Design Museum of Breda and professor of design history at the University of Amsterdam (Universiteit van Amsterdam), Added Value and the Museum. Developing a Museum for Graphic Design in De Beyerd, Breda, presented at the international conference of the Design History Society, Design and Evolution, held at the TU in Delft on September 2, 2006. In this paper Cleven advances thoughtful reflections on the world of museums and more specifically about design museums.
I recently had the chance to talk and exchange ideas with Esther Cleven, on December 4, 2009, about design museums and her curatorial work at the Graphic Design Museum in Breda – a museum that I have not visited so far, but that I certainly will visit soon.

Reading your paper, I found interesting that you also noticed that the Technisches Museum Wien in Vienna has a great historical exhibition about technology and society, which is also an exhibition on design history. In 2009 Jeremy Aynsley’s “Designing Modern Germany” was published, and I think that if one wishes to visit an exhibition concerning some topics he deals with, well, you can find it at the Technisches Museum in Vienna. This might seem quite incredible. As I mentioned, I am looking for museums dealing with design under diverse perspectives, so of course I am also interested in your approach. As far as I read from your paper, you considered a wider panorama of museums in the Netherlands and in the field of design, and you also considered how important it is to stress and remind that design is to be understood in its social dimension… something which is not so usual in design museums, surprisingly…
Yes I know, it astonishes me as well.

… I can understand it is difficult to build exhibitions and to work inside institutions which may have a certain kind of tradition, and where you are probably not so free to pursue just intellectual considerations. Anyway, in my research I studied the history of museums dealing with design, and what I could see is that it is true, that still today there is the need to remind that design does not exist outside society.
I think the main reason for that is probably that most of the design museums or museums dealing with design are related to the history of art and the economy of collecting art. As a result they have a problem with the way in which design is valued by society as a collector’s item – it is about quality and value in terms of money. I think private collectors, antiquarians and art dealers still do have a lot to say about the evaluation of design within museums (of which, by the way, quite some designers are happy). If they are not directly involved, they shape public ideas on how to value design as much as they do in the case of art. Consequently, curators are very much imprisoned by these relations and stereotypes, and they are not so free to look on design from an academic or outsider view. Furthermore, and maybe because of this traditional art context, they may be less involved with presentation and narration.

I can see there are some changes actually. Still, there are recently born museums just dealing with contemporary design, and they seem to have again the same problem…
Yes, in these cases museums turn into marketing tools. It’s an effect we have to deal with in Breda as well and it’s a challenge to get around it. First of all, whenever museums share their institutional reputation, they do, more or less automatically, upmarket what is shown. Design too. Furthermore, today design is marketing. That is to say, it is marketed heavily and in order to do so it is iconized, in terms of names and objects, hitting to the antiquarian view of design. As a result it is more difficult to get the public to look at design differently, because they’re used too see design being marketed in magazines, shops, on TV or whatever, showing design as an icon, as something different from daily life. In the museum in Breda we tried to do is saying “design is part of daily life”. Many seem not to agree, but - we’re now open since one year and a half - people seem to understand what we did in the permanent exhibition. Nevertheless, they find it difficult to adapt their view that is formed by traditional art museums, the economy of the art market and design marketing to that historical approach: they still tend to expect an exhibition where the object is central. Unluckily, in a sense we feed that expectation because we decided to give the objects, as materials, a lot of space – because graphic needs that, tends to become a picture when you show it on the wall or in a frame - we concentrated on showing them as material objects to make them more “approachable”…

… like material documents, not monuments…
Yes, we also decided to show that posters have a back as well, that brochures have internal pages… Because we did point out the tactile aspect, people tend to look at it as an iconized object. So, even if we gave them context, the atmosphere, the stories, narration like you can see in other kinds of museums as technical museums and historical museums… some public tends to see them as objects only, and evaluate them as if they were in an art museum.

It’s a hard job, to move perception further.
Yes. You asked me [in an email] if we had any problems. Making the exhibition [100 Years of Dutch Graphic Design] was fun, it was interesting to think about the aims, and how to get context into the exhibitions. I looked a lot at science museums, since they did a lot of experimentation in the 1990s, also with art installations within them, and also at historical museums, how do they do deal with storytelling, and I learned that these museums are dealing with the building of the experience much more than art museums. They have the storytelling within the space, and they use the space, interaction, lights to tell stories… I tried to get that into our museum, and I think we succeeded in it. But then we had to learn that not all people are used to get into these kinds of experience, because they do not go in these museums.

It’s a different public.
Yes, our public is designers and mainly students who want to become designers or work in the field of media and communication, and people in their 50s and 60s, the typical art-interested public, and they are used at art museums and they want get in touch with the “extraordinary”. This public does not get the exhibition as we intended it. But then you also get the people from around the corner, and we also have a lot of tourists in summer… these people are really happy with this exhibition. So we do reach them because they can connect with daily life and storytelling, they visit different kinds of museums, and they are used to be involved in experiences like that. Well we did not make maybe an experience, we just used different techniques to tell the story, and they do understand the story. So the art and design public is really difficult.

Yes, and I think this is one main problem that design museums still have, to attract a different public, which you cannot attract if you do not connect design to their experience and daily life, or to their memories…
It is interesting you asked me that question, since we now as museum have to deal with this topic: which direction to go, and if we go towards the normal public then how to deal with the art museums public, and the other way round. A general public is interested in the historical, social and economic side of design history, the history of ideas too, it gives them a starting point to understand design. And then the other ambition, to connect with the art and design public, more interested in the future of design. How to get both these audiences is an issue.
When we opened, we had it clear cut, having the permanent exhibition for the big public, people who do not know anything about design, like an introduction – which is also interesting for designers – and we had an exhibition especially made for children, completely a different experience, and we also had an exhibition about contemporary design, completely different from the permanent exhibition, giving space to designers to do their projects and installations etc. So we have now all these things in the museum, but, you know, in a time of crisis, cultural institutions are really going now into a hard period, and it is tough to keep all these balls up in the air.

Is the institution funded by the city of Breda?
Yes mainly by the city of Breda, but there is also money coming from the Province and the State and a little of sponsoring. Institutions in Holland have been privatized a lot in the past ten years or so, and we all need to look for money, and now with the crisis is really getting difficult for the first time. We’ll see where this is going.

As far as the permanent exhibition is concerned, I could see images from the installation; did you use captions and labels to convey information to the visitors, about contexts and so on?
Well, the problem of how to get information across is still in an experimental state. We have a handout with an abstract of the relation between graphic design and society in the 20th century. We knew that only few people would read all of that and it is not the perfect medium. But we are happy that people are taking it with them, and read it afterwards once they are home. It is a story in itself, but it is also quite intellectual, in a sense. At the moment we do develop also an iPhone application, so people can make a link from the object to stories and contents. All of that means, we tend not to put too much text into the exhibition, because graphic design involves a lot of text in itself already, you know…

I see, of course, it may be even harder, since you have text on the “objects” and you should use text.
Yes, that is the main reason why we invested so much in other means to tell the story. The atmosphere and light of the spaces is telling stories about the diverse periods, e.g.. We have projections and sounds. We also have interactive elements, that do make people experience that communication is getting more interactive and individual. People can skip and do different things, too. As a curator you have to let go the idea that you can tell the whole story. That is what I learnt. Usually history museums do not deal with this problem, they tend to build the walk through the exhibition like Ikea, you have to start at A and you really have to follow each step; but people do not really use exhibitions in that way, they skip, they zap like watching TV. So you have to try to get the atmosphere in those details like they can zap into, and probably they will not get the whole story but they do not need to, as long as they do understand the main point of the storyline: graphic design in Holland is part of modernization, its development is connected to how Holland did modernize. If they get that point they are already very far, I think.

I have the idea that graphic design is more part of common culture, or there is a higher awareness about visual communication in Holland than in Italy, where also there is not public awareness form the government, beside the idea/image of “made Italy”…
Well, it is interesting, I think that design in Holland is a bigger industry than anywhere else, that is probably the way to put it. When Holland was modernized and industrialized the designers got involved in the building of the country, and that is not so long ago, 50-60 years ago. That is different form other countries where modernization started earlier, and the design industry was not as big as it is now. So we can say also that in Holland it is more a systematic thing, but also really about communication thinking, where Italy is more connected to art thinking, and individual companies that work with designers but more as a private project. But in the end I would hesitate to say that Dutch people are more design-minded.

I read you are developing a database of graphic design, how it works, does it include videos or interviews with designers still alive, or which kind of information?
Technology is difficult for museums. Since 2002 we’ve been looking to develop a knowledge database for theweb, where you connect to different locations where information is gathered. We were focusing on making links. We have a file system with files on subjects, peoples, we try to find sites on the web where that stuff may be public. The Dutch Design Archives and the Dutch Advertising Arsenal (NAGO and ReclameArsenaal) publish all their objects including archives on the web. But also we want to reflect to what happened to the status of information because of the internet and democratization. In the paper you read I talked about how to get different views into the institutional context. It is not an easy issue, but you have to deal with it. People want to share not just information but their vision, their personal position, so it is a deal about who is in the position of giving information. There is not one answer. I still believe that institutionalization is a process… it seems as if museums are not in power anymore, but I think that we see how this process of institutionalization of knowledge works on the web: people share information, but this become relevant as long as it is becoming part of a network, as an institution. So we can see this process, and we have to discuss it with the public.

Are you also hosting exhibitions from abroad and international design?
Yes, in the exhibitions the focus is on picking up issues of media and visual culture, not just the focus on Dutch graphic design history. They focus on exchange about what is going on internationally.

The year 2010 begins with an important news: Bill Moggridge, a founder of the design firm IDEO, has been named director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, in New York, to be effective by March 2010 – see the “New York Times” article.
While it certainly marks a significant change in the history of this institution, which for decades has repeatedly tried to establish its identity as a museum of design, this event can be looked at as a signal to the wider world of design museums.
As it is known, the origins of the Cooper-Hewitt museum date back to the late nineteenth century, when the Hewitt sisters – nieces of the iron magnate Peter Cooper, who had already set in Manhattan, the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art – founded in 1897 a museum of applied arts. Like many museums of applied arts born at the time, however, the Cooper-Hewitt was soon to face the difficult relationship between its historic collections and the development of contemporary production of goods, in a society that was growingly turning to industry. In its past, then, this institution often had to come to terms with its identity and its role, and in some way with the meaning of its existence.
The 1960s marked a particularly difficult time. In June 1963 the “New York Times” ran an article, Cooper Union Plans to Close its Museum, which underlined that the museum «does not contribute substantially to Cooper Union’s broad education program in engineering, science, art and architecture».(1)

As Russell Lynes has noted, in his book on the history of the museum, More Than Meets the Eye, during the Sixties art and architecture were taught in an atmosphere permeated by the influence of the Bauhaus, consequently museums with historical collections were often seen as enemies of the individual expression, and as the longa manus of the past.
As far as the museum of the Cooper Union was concerned, in fact it was closed four days after that article appeared; but this decision raised a series of protests, and two committees were formed to save the museum. In the end, an agreement with the Smithsonian Institution was reached, that the holdings of the Cooper Union Museum were to be transferred to the Smithsonian Institution with the provison that they remained in New York and supported by private funding. In 1968 the Museum was granted the use of the Carnegie building on the 5th Avenue, and the museum was named “Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Design”.(2)
But, as we understand, “design” can be given diverse meanings, and in the case of the Cooper-Hewitt this term had (and still has) to cover and justify a range of diverse historical collections. Thus, despite a series of exhibitions in the gallery devoted to contemporary design, from bags to posters, the museum still remained a decorative arts museum, and design was mainly read in this direction.
When in 1994 the museum commissioned its new corporate identity, changing the name to “Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution”, it seemed that the museum still felt the need to clarify its role: «We’re telling people what they need to know first [...] This is a design museum», as stated by Susan Yelavich, then assistant director for public programs.(3)
Apart from this change in the name of the museum, actually a significant shift in the Cooper-Hewitt strategy occurred in the nineties, thanks to the directorship of Dianne Pligrim – since 1991. Distancing the museum from the traditional art-history-approach and the aesthetic consideration of design, Pilgrim aimed at exploring the cultural and social values of design, investigating the uses and consumption of products, the identity and the role of objects in everyday life.
The first exhibition of pieces from the collections of the museum, under her directorship, The Cooper-Hewitt Collections: A Design Resource (1991), was organized with the intent to present to the public a “library of visual design”. As Pilgrim clarified, curators «did not impose an art-historical structure on the exhibit because we are not an art museum», while they wanted to suggest the cultural and social value of the artefacts, regardless of their artistic quality – thus also proving that historical collections are not as such an impediment to produce new interpretations and new content. In line with this reading, in 1994 the museum organized the exhibition Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office, curated by Ellen Lupton. Lupton proposed a feminist reading of design, looking at design from the perspective of consumption and of use of products, rather than repeating the history of their “invention” and production by male designers and entrepreneurs. Such an approach obviously meant that lesser-known stories were explored and that objects on display were only one component of the exhibition, which was necessarily enriched with images, advertisements, videos, texts.(4) Interviewed in late nineties by Steven Heller, Lupton reported:

«It was definitely design from a sociological point of view, as opposed to design from the point of view of aesthetics or technology or invention or the designer. It focused on objects insofar as it dealt with aesthetic issues, like the use of color and form in the telephone, or streamlining in the washing machine. I tried to see the cultural implications of that, as opposed to looking at that as an end in itself».(5)

Definitely this was a promising direction for discussing and representing design history and design culture in museums, a perspective which was probably able to reach and attract a different audience than the public of hard-core design fans and of people just interested in design as art. Also, this is a perspective that requires the overcoming of retrograde categories and hierarchies of material culture, drawing from diverse disciplines (history, material culture studies, gender studies, sociology, etc.), and that is not easy to pursue for curators. No surprise it is certainly the less traveled by museums dealing with design, as it also appeared from the period of directorship of Pilgrim’s successor.
Under Paul Warwick Thompson, former director of the Design Museum in London, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum proceeded in quite a different direction. Probably it is significant that in 2006 Thompson declared: «We’re a design museum, we’re not a social history museum». A statement that showed again the perceived need for the museum to clarify its identity, to differentiate and mark its territory in comparison to other institutions and other fields. Yet, it would be hard to say that Thompson’s directorship succeeded in his aim.
It is interesting to read again what Thompson said to Steven Heller in 2002, just one year after his appointment as director of the museum:

«[SH:] England has long held popular culture and applied design as national treasures and has the museums to prove it, including your former venue, the Design Museum London. How do you feel the US compares? In other words, does the US have more or less of a commitment to preserving and exhibiting the relics of everyday life?
[PWT:] Yes, the decorative and ‘useful arts’ were of course championed by Prince Albert and Henry Cole. But now, I think Britain has a confused relationship with the applied/decorative arts and contemporary design. Like other countries, applied arts and design in the UK fall on the wrong side of the ‘high’ and ‘low’ arts divide. In order to get column inches or gallery space, you have to press the ‘design as art’ button – then audiences and journalists feel comfortable, or worse still, press the ‘design as retail opportunity’ button».(6)

But was design really on the “right” side of the high/low divide under Thompson’s directorship? As regards the activities of the museum between 2001 and 2008, it seemes that the collections were brought at the heart of the museum’s policy, trying to cover the gap accumulated during the twentieth century, when acquisitions focused on the past rather than on contemporary productions. Also the aim appeared to create bridges between past and present – yet this often meant that the meaning of the word “design” was kept open or stretched, by exploring the formal and stylistic links between history and current practice, as in exhibitions devoted to Giovanni Battista Piranesi as designer and Rococo. The Continuing Curve (2008),(7) but it also led, for instance, to re-discover «one of the first industrial designer», Christopher Dresser, in Shock of the Old (2004).
The same commitment on the collections has led to the organization of exhibitions with objects from the collections, selected and arranged by invited designers or artists, as well as to commission contemporary designers the realization of pieces inspired by the collections of the museum (a practice that was quite usual in applied arts museum of the 19th and early 20th Century). In this sense, the interpretation of the museum’s role as a bridge between past and present given by Thompson is definitely different from the one of the previous director of the Cooper-Hewitt – if the museum of Thompson was not a social history museum, it often resembled an art museum.
Meanwhile a growing interest was shown towards contemporary design, through the work of curators like Ellen Lupton, curator of Contemporary Design, Matilda McQuaid, deputy curatorial director and head of the Textiles department, and Cynthia E. Smith, curator of Socially Responsible Design – see exhibitions like Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance (2005), and Design for the Other 90% (2007) as well the most recent Design for a Living World (2009).

This is the state of the art. In 2008 Thompson announced his resignation as director of the Cooper-Hewitt, to become the new rector of the Royal College of Art in London. Following his leaving in Summer 2009, Caroline Baumann was acting director for some monhts, and finally Bill Moggridge was appointed in January 2010.
In 2008, one member from IDEO, Tim Brown, already was invited to represent design thinking by selecting and displaying some pieces from Cooper-Hewitt’s collections in the small exhibition IDEO Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection. Yet the task facing Moggridge is a greater deal and opportunity: will he help clarifying what it means to be a design museum and to be «the only museum in the nation [USA] devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design», as reads the institutional statement from the museum? Maybe a new awareness will pervade museums claiming themselves to be “museums of design”: an awareness of what design has been, what it is today and what it may be in the future.
Indeed the appointment of a designer like Moggridge at the Cooper-Hewitt might have its pros and cons.
Being a designer actually involved in innovation as well as engaged in design education, he certainly has a close and deep understanding of where design is going (and should go), hopefully well beyond canons of “good design” and glittering trends for design addicted; on the other side, for the same reason, there is a risk that he will tend to address designers and design students, rather than bringing the awareness of design’s social and cultural role and of design history to the general public. Also, being used in working with large team and people, he will probably be prepared to face the organisational tasks the directorship will pose. Yet, not only will he have to face the re-organisation of the museum, with the architectural renovation that shall finally provide the museum a permanent gallery and temporary exhibition spaces from 2013; he will have to deal with the tradition of a museum in which, so far, only one curatorial department is dedicated to product design, while the remaining others are devoted to Decorative Arts, Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design, Textiles, and Wallcoverings; he will have to ponder on the position of the Cooper-Hewitt, of its collections and curatorial strategy, not only within the Smithsonian Institution, but in the museum world of New York – where the Department of Architecture of Design at MoMA, led by Paola Antonelli, is already well engaged with contemporary design, while other institutions like the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Metropolitan and the Noguchi Museum all have design collections and offer exhibitions of design –; finally, he will have to consider the position of the Cooper-Hewitt in the wider, international, world of design museums – where new institutions and departments have emerged recently (see the department and the new curator at the Chicago Art Institute, and the Design Museum in Holon, Israel, to be inaugurated on January 31st), while new plans are going on in older institutions (see the discussions at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich, concerning the strategy for the collections of design, and the plan of the Design Museum in London to move to a larger premise).

Notes
(1) Russell Lynes, More than Meets the Eye. The History and Collections of Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Design, New York, Smithsonian Institution, 1981, pp. 38-39.
(2) Sanka Knox, Smithsonian Takes Over Cooper Union Museum, in “New York Times”, 10 October 1967, p. 41.
(3) A Graphic Change for Cooper Hewitt, in “The New York Times”, 22 September 1994, p. 11.
(4) For a critical review and for the quotation from Pilgrim see Susan Sellers, Mechanical Brides: The Exhibition, in “Design Issues”, vol. 10, 1994, n. 2, Summer, pp. 69-79.
(5) Ellen Lupton on Curating Design, in Design Dialogues, ed. by Steven Heller, Elinor Pettit, New York, Allworth, 1998, pp. 117-132: 124.
(6) Paul Thompson, director of the Cooper-Hewitt, interview by Steven Heller, March 2002, http://www.typotheque.com.
(7) For a review of the exhibition Rococo see Andrea Renner in “Design and Culture”, vol. 1, 2009, n. 9, March, which is available online from Berg Publishers.

«For design, the inescapable criterion is appearance: A well-designed object must look good. The method of its creation is irrelevant, which is why a talented industrial designer can go from cars to buildings to drink dispensers to book jackets, while craft workers tend to specialize in one thing. And while function should ideally be taken into account, it is often decidedly secondary, as anyone who has sat in a modernist armchair can attest. Indeed, some of the most familiar triumphs of industrial design, such as Raymond Loewy’s locomotive bodies, are nothing more than decorations for the technology underneath».

In comparison and, one might say, as opposed to design, Schwarz portrays engineering as follows:

«As for engineering, the sine qua non is simple: It has to work. While a well engineered bridge or automobile will usually be aesthetically pleasing, poorly engineered examples can look just as good. If they collapse or fail to start, however, no amount of art theory will remedy the situation. This is what sets engineering apart from the allied disciplines mentioned above – and why good engineering is best experienced not in a museum but in the ordinary course of our daily lives».

Putting aside the narrow consideration Schwarz seems to have of museums – identifying them just with the art museum and as a place that is separate from where daily life actually occurs –, let’s focus on the misunderstanding and misinterpretation that support his view on design. A kind of misunderstanding that is not rare, not even in the new millennium.

First of all, from his words emerges the prejudice that, without exception, identifies design with appearence, with a cosmetic practice that is detached from any consideration of the production methods as well as of use and consumption; design is portrayed by Mr. Schwarz as a practice whose outcome is assessed just like that of an artistic practice; finally, a practice and discipline that seems not to have developed and changed from the early twentieth century to today. Secondly, engineering (and technology) is interpreted as a just technical affair – pardon the pun – whose value is measured solely on the basis of techno-functionality. Finally, from Schwarz’s words the idea emerges of design and engineering as opposed one to another, as between what appears and what is; between a practice that can totally ignore what is needed in human life and what society requires, and what works and is useful, and thus essential to life; between what is optional and ornamental and what is needed.
Now, this way of looking at design and engineering/technology, still in the name of a dualistic thinking, could be understood and “justified” if it dated back to sixty years ago; but it is certainly unsustainable in the new millennium. Not because it is false that design is concerned with the configuration of artefacts, and therefore also with the aesthetic appearance of objects, nor because it is false that its products can be selected and displayed as art in museums; not because it can be denied that in the history of design, some developments and outcome have been and are still primarily ornamental. Again, not because it is false that, if a bridge does not stand up or a car does not start, these are technically ill-engineered, and not because it is my wish to say the designer and the engineer have the same competencies and skills. Rather, because, as the developments in the practice of design and as the historical and theoretical-critical advancements and debates in the recent decades have shown, matters are more complex. And this is a point that one can understand only if one brings back design and engineering/technology where they belong: that is, society.
First, design is technique, is techne, as long as it belongs to that dimension that distinguishes the human being, namely the need and ability to transform, shape the world we inhabit; in this sense, design, art, craft, engineering etc. come together, as manifestation of man and society, as expressions of “culture”. From this point of view, indeed, Schwarz himself does not seem to object.
Secondly, however, industrial design emerged at a certain historic point in the development of technology and civilization, in short, following the industrial revolution, when the introduction of the mechanized manufacturing actually did split the concept and the execution of objects, thus requiring a mediation to link these stages. In this sense, as a practice and as a historical phenomenon, design has not remained the same, it developed in relation to the changing of technology and economy and in relation to the wider development of society and culture in different contexts. The development of design, moreover, refers to both the practice and the discourse, the profession and the theoretical efforts to draw a conceptual framework for design and designers. From this point of view, it is certain that the theoretical premises and practical basis for the activity of design were at first developed as an extension and application of skills, knowledge and modes of the arts and of craft – through an approach which was fundamentally dualistic, where art was called upon to lay down the form of the technique, of the products of industry. And it is true that, subsequently, design has been associated with the development of modern architecture, bringing to important results – which eventually tied design and the idea of design and designers to that of a narrow sector of industrial production, in particular the world of furniture. Now, if all that is true, it is also true that since then industrial design has shown the will and capacity to proceed in other directions, slowly distinguishing itself from art and architecture, contributing and participating to varying degrees to the configuration of different fields of contemporary material culture and life, from the most simple objects to complex products; that is, design did confront areas where concepts, methods and tools related to those early concepts inevitably proved to be overcome and were to overcome. And these developments, of course, took place specifically in relation to the changing of the socio-technical horizon in which designers operated. This also explains why so many definitions of industrial design that have occurred over the course of the twentieth century, and that were developed in response to new challenges and design possibilities, and following the desire to clarify the responsibilities of design compared to other disciplines, have proved limited as long as they linked the specificity of design only in relation to one or the other aspect and factor – form and aesthetics, method of production, quantity, etc.
From this point of view, to go back to Mr. Schwarz, the idea that design today only concerns the appearance of products proves severely limited, because it ignores the historical development of industrial design, and because it does not take into account the actual and the potential position of designers in shaping the tangible and intangible culture and life of our society. Similarly, the idea that form and function, design and engineering/technology, design and human needs stay as independent and opposed elements, indicates a grave misunderstanding: it forgets that form and function are not separable in that sense, and that the competence and expertise of the designer should not / cannot be traced in the terms of his/her indifference to what the engineer does, or in the terms of his/her freedom from the system of production, from the choice of materials, etc., or in the terms of his/her indifference to the social needs. Because, on the contrary, design is intimately tied to all these factors and aspects.
To make this point clearer, it might be helpful to go back to the definition of design given more than forty years ago by Tomás Maldonado, then director of the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, and presented at the International council of societies of industrial design (ICSID) in 1961. According to that “definition”, to design means

«to coordinate, integrate and articulate all the factors that, in one way or another, are involved in the process of building the form of the product. More specifically, these factors are both those relating to the use, enjoyment and consumption of individual or social products (functional, symbolic or cultural factors) and those relating to their production (techno-economic, technical-constructive, technical and systematic, technical-productive, technical and distribution factors)»(1)

Moreover, as Maldonado himself underlined later, in the seventies, this definition is valid as long as one admits that the task of coordinating, integrating and articulating the various factors is always strongly influenced by the manner in which production and consumption of goods are developed in a given society: «In other words, it must be admitted that industrial design, contrary to what its precursors had imagined, is not a self-sufficient activity».
This “definition”, as has often been noted and as was the intent of Maldonado, still remains a useful guide because of its flexibility, since it does not impose a reading of what design is, it does not abstract a distinguishing factor over another, but it looks to design precisely while keeping it amidst the world, linked to concrete development of history and society; in short it looks to design as an activity and a phenomenon that is not isolated but is tied to multiple factors and other phenomena. These are factors and phenomena which, we understand, not all and not always or necessarily have the same weight in the design process and on choices made by designers, but they’re still all present, and surely they must all be considered if one aims at understanding the history of design, the value and the significance of design in the different historical, social, cultural contexts – if one wish to understand the many stories, the different values, the diverse meanings of design.
If this is true – as the decades that have passed since Maldonado wrote those words have amply demonstrated, both for the practice and for the theory of design – then the strange case of Frederic D. Schwarz still remains to be understood: that is, why in year 2000 the idea that design is primarily or only a matter of cosmetic appearance remains so strong?
To try an answer, it might be useful to refer once again to those before us, who have written thoughtful words on design. A few years ago, pondering on industrial design in order to stress the importance to advance a truly “critical work” on the subject, the Italian scholar Sergio Polano indicated the way to proceed in this direction as follows:

«… what is needed is a little bit more of curiosity on the side of people who deal with design, as well as a greater commitment from those who have a responsibility in spreading a knowledge and in informing about design, through the observation, the detection, and the acquisition of news and facts. Ergo, much remains to be done both as far as concerns the analysis, documentation and study of design, and as far as concerns the communication and reception of industrial design: education, to put it briefly».(2)

Education, in short, that is the missing piece to solve the case of Mr. Schwarz. But this piece also pushes us to turn our attention to the topic that is of main interest for this blog, that is the role museums play in building and spreading the culture of design.
If museums are among the main actors in building and spreading knowledge, or in stimulating the curiosity and interest in knowing, and if design museums (museums that call themselves as such) are responsible in elaborating and communicating the culture of design, then the question arises: are today design museums able or not to change the mind of Mr. Schwarz and of people who still think that design just means dealing with the aesthetics of products?
To tell the truth, looking at the overall panorama of so-called design museums, I think they are not.

Notes
(1) «… progettare la forma significa coordinare, integrare e articolare tutti quei fattori che, in un modo o nell’altro, partecipano al processo costitutivo della forma del prodotto. E, più precisamente, si allude tanto ai fattori relativi all’uso, alla fruizione e al consumo individuale o sociale del prodotto (fattori funzionali, simbolici o culturali) quanto a quelli relativi alla sua produzione (fattori tecnico-economici, tecnico-costruttivi, tecnico-sistematici, tecnico-produttivi e tecnico-distributivi). La definizione, malgrado la sua genericità, è tuttora valida. Eppure dobbiamo aggiungere: è valida solo a patto di ammettere che l’attività di coordinare, integrare e articolare i diversi fattori è sempre fortemente condizionata dal modo in cui produzione e consumo di beni si esplicano in una data società. In altre parole, è necessario ammettere che il disegno industriale, contrariamente a ciò che avevano immaginato i suoi precursori, non è un’attività autonoma», Tomás Maldonado, Disegno industriale: un riesame, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1991 (1976), p. 12.
(2) «… basterebbe soltanto un po’ più di curiosità da parte degli addetti ai lavori, nonché maggiore impegno in chi avrebbe il compito di far sapere e di informare, osservando, rilevando, acquisendo, sceverando notizie e fatti. Ergo, molto resta da fare, sul piano sia dell’analisi, documentazione e studio, sia sul versante della comunicazione e ricezione del disegno industriale; educazione, insomma», Sergio Polano, Per una critica degli artefatti umani, in “dezine 1”, 2001, May, p. 2.

Maddalena Dalla Mura, Design in Museums: Towards an Integrative Approach. The Potential
of Science and Technology Museums, in “Journal of Design History”, 22/3, 2009, pp. 259-270

Abstract:

To deal with design in museums today means not only to look at well-established design museums but also to integrate different resources and explore the potential of other types of institutions engaged in the preservation, study and exhibition of artefacts, documents and stories of the modern world. This article focuses on science and technology museums to suggest how they may contribute to improve and spread the understanding of this phenomenon among a wider public. Three cases of European museums, which already display an interest in design, are presented with the intent to show that these institutions should be regarded not only as repositories to draw on but also as autonomous interpreters of design. The aim is to provide a basis for further discussion, to eventually rethink the position of design in museums.

The article can be accessed/purchased from the “Journal of Design History”

In the article Establishing the Manifesto. Art Histories in the Nineteenth-century museum by Christopher Whitehead which I already mentioned and quoted, the author also offered some recent cases where museological and curatorial projects might be read and interpreted as agents of “boundary work”. Among these, he reported about two exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and one at the Design Museum in London. The latter was the

«exhibition dedicated to the work of the mid-twentieth-century flower arranager Constance Spry at the Design Musuem in London can be seen to push the boundary of what can be studied and exhibited under the banner of ‘design history’. The controversy surrounding this exhibition, however, is an indication of the potentially difficult and contested nature of such boundary work, not to mention its interrelationship with cultural and commercial politics».

As far as design is concerned, a lot of research could be done on the “boundary work” developed within and around museums. And the Design Museum in London certainly offers an interesting case to study, in order to investigate if and how the boundaries of what is meant by the word “design” are stretched, as well as to understand how the identity of a museum of design is shaped.
In his paper, Whitehead does not mention that the ‘Spry case’ in 2004 was one main event pushing James Dyson to resign from chairman of the Design Museum «in protest over what he [saw] as a drift from serious discussion to fluff», as the Washington Post reported, or – to put it in the words of Dyson’s press release – «following concerns that focus has become styling rather than product design». The exhibition about the work of Spry was a project by the then director Alice Rawsthorne, and the case was debated quite extensively, and lots of traces can be found online, offering a range of opinions besides press releases; for instance, on imomus’ blog, the author and his readers trace the question back to oppositions as men vs. women (Rawsthorne vs. Dyson and Terence Conran); engineering, problem solving and functionalism vs. style and fashion; modernism vs. postmodernism.
In 2006 Rawsthorne resigned, and since then Deyan Sudjic is the director.
People may change, yet stretches and controversies always seem to be around the corner – see also the wikipedia voice on the Museum, where a paragraph is specifically devoted to ‘Controversy’ [September 20, 2009: The day after this post was first published online, on July 27, 2009, the wikipedia voice about the Design Museum was edited, deleting the paragraph concerning ‘Controversy’, to which I made reference; this change can be seen from the history of the wikipedia voice; the previous version, including the ‘Controversy’ paragraph, can still be read in the history of the voice]. Another good case to question could be the exhibition the last year’s exhibition on the work of the fashion photographer Tim Walker. Definitely a great work and an interesting exhibition, yet the link with design was far from being clear.

Moreover, it is well known that in the recent years the Design Museum is working to better define its identity, restructuring its collections and trying to move beyond the policy of showing just temporary exhibitions. Plans for a new ‘home’ have become crucial. After considering sites as Tate Modern and Potters Field,

«[m]ost recently, the museum —founded by Terence Conran and Stephen Bayley in the 1980s and originally located in the basement of the Victoria & Albert Museum — has again been courted by the V&A. However, BD understands that Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic, who took up the post in 2006, was concerned it could be lost within the much larger museum»,

as the Building Design online magazine reported in October 2008.
It is significant that, while it was born as a ‘Boilerhouse’ project in the basement of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s basement in 1982, today the Design Museum feels it has – or maybe should strengthen and maintain – its own, separate, identity.
By the way, it is a recent news that Kensington & Chelsea Council planners asked OMA to redraw the project, being «concerned about the height and bulk of the proposed development», as the Building Design magazine reported on July 8.
The story continues…

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 same roof, and display in the same room? Which partitions, which kind of departments, which nomenclatures and labels would we adopt? What about the idea of bringing together design, from teakettles to prostheses, from automobiles to fashion?
Of course, this opportunity is quite far from reality. Yet, while the Victoria and Albert Museum is a well-established and renowned museum of design, it is interesting to note that in 2008-09 the Science Museum produced and hosted exhibitions which undoubtedly dealt with design stories and history (DanDare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain, JapanCar. Design for the Crowded World). It might be even more significant to learn that this year, 2009, the Science Museum included design in its new mission and strategy, along with science, technology, medicine and engineering.
Even if I doubt that design will become the field of an explicit contention between the two institutions, an eye should be kept onto Exhibition Road.

In the past months, these and other considerations I was doing in the context of my PhD research, were further stimulated by reading what Christopher Whitehead – Senior Lecturer in Museum Gallery and Heritage Studies at Newcastle University – wrote on how we can understand «what museums collect and display and why and how they do so as a form of boundary work» that contribute to shape and maintain divisions and boundaries of knowledge.
Establishing the Manifesto. Art Histories in the Nineteenth-century museum, the paper by Whitehead I just quoted, was published in 2007 in a book entitled Museum Revolutions (London-New York, Routledge), which brings together museum professionals and academics to investigate «how museums change and are changed» as the subtitle reads, i.e. «the way in which museums are shaped and configured and how they themselves attempt to shape and change the world around them» (ibid., p. i). The article by Whitehead (ibid., pp. 48-60) certainly is one of the most interesting – at best in my opinion. Drawing from some ideas already put forth by Donald Preziosi on the relathionships between art museums and the discipline of art history, and from studies on the construction of disciplines and knowledge, Establishing the Manifesto explores debates and museological proposals which were discussed in 1850s concerning the British Museum and the National Gallery, arguing that «the curatorial act of representing art history in museum display – situating collected objects three dimensionally, in relation to the transit and forms of engagement of imagined visitors – was actually constitutive of certain intellectual approaches and practices of art history as a discipline» (ibid., p. 48).
The opening of the article could not be of major impact:

«Imagine this scenario. The date is 1853. What if the institutional identities of the British Museum and the National Gallery, together with their accreted conventions of collecting and display, were somehow suddenly dissolved, leaving us with their collections alone? Given the opportunity of such a tabula rasa, would we choose to situate the British Museum’s Egyptian, classical or prehistoric ‘antiquities’ and the post-medieval paintings of the National Gallery together, or at least in relation to one another? If, after the hypothetical orphaning of the collections, we were tasked with their rehoming, what would we do? Would we seek to reorganise them, and, in so doing, potentially reorganise the knowledges they represent? What boundaries would we impose, what categories of material culture would we seek to identify and what stories of the past would we tell?»

Whitehead analyzed diverse museological proposals for the reorganization of national museums like the National Gallery and the British Museum – the ‘site question’ –, as they were advanced by intellectuals and scholars, archaeologists and curators (John Ruskin, among the others), in a period when it seemed that the two institutions could be relocated «potentially allowing for them and their collections to come into closer relationship» or be integrated. Particular attention was put by the author on the «conceptual and physical segregation of painting as a special category of material culture», and on how its dislocated position, in a separate kind of museum, might affect our «disciplinary practice» and historical understandings.
Using notions like ‘disciplinarity’ and ‘boundary work’ drawn from other scholars, and adapting them to the museological dimension, he concludes that

«it is possible to view museum display, notional or real, as a form of theorising, through the relations between ‘diverse parts’ one seeks to establish and the boundaries one sets. Crucially, however, this intellectual endeavour is politically and circumstantially contingent. It is also potentially divisive, for in bringing together some objects (physically, intellectually and territorially) it separates others; in enabling some kinds of knowledge relations, it disables others» (ibid., p. 57).

In 2009 Whitehead published Museums and the Construction of Disciplines. Art and Archeology in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London, Duckworth), a book where he widens and deepens issues and considerations he advanced in the article mentioned above.
The book is divided in two Parts.
In Part I, Museums, Knowledge and Disciplinarity, the author introduces the theoretical framework he adopts.
Chapter 1 is dedicated to the «discursive nature of the museum, examining the museum as one of the institutional agents which construct knowledge». He makes reference to a range of theories and epistemologies that in the past decades questioned the role of museums, highlighting their “authorship” and the knowledge they produce as «political, culturally located and contestable» (ibid., p. 19).
Basing on notions explored in the first chapter, chapter 2 proceeds to investigate how «museums divide knowledges», in their need to differentiate themselves from one another. Besides notions of “disciplinarity” and “boundary” work he already used in the paper, drawing from the volume Knowledges. Historical and Critical Studies in Disciplinarity, edited by Ellen Messer-Davidow, David R. Shumway and David J. Sylvan (University Press of Virginia, 1993), he enriches the set of conceptual tools adapting other aspects and notions from social constructionism. For instance, Howard Becker’s notion of “art worlds” (see Art Worlds) is adapted to talk of the “museum world” as «a network of people whose cooperative activity, organized via their joint knowledge of conventional means of doing things, produces the kind of representations that the museum world is noted for» (Museums and the Construction of Disciplines, p. 47). And he uses the concept of map and the notion of “cultural cartography” of Thomas Gieryn (see Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line), in order to depict the map of the museum world as «a map with many authors, not all of whom are attentive to what geographies others have drawn or are drawing, while others fiercely, competitively and territorially overdraw what others have drawn» (Museums and the Construction of Disciplines, p. 49). Moreover he sites the museum world in the perspective of Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of “field”, especially with reference to the issues of “permeation” and “struggle” within fields.
In Part I, Whitehead also adds examples to help the reader understand the use of those notions. As in the article, the British Museum and the National Gallery are in focus, but also Henry Cole’s South Kensington Museum is on the stage, proving itself «one of the most aggressive actors within the museum world of mid-nineteenth-century London» (ibid., p. 58).(1)
Part II, Art and Archeology in 1850s London, applies the framework constructed in the first part, to focus on debates on national museums in London and on the status of art and archeology in mid nineteenth Century, exploring the «use of objects to establish, transgress or connect boundaries» – where “objects” is meant both in the accepted sense and in the extensive meaning of «discrepant, bounded and connective objects», i.e. «epistemologically problematic bodies of material culture [...] moved around the map to test out categories, representations, practices and histories of the world» (ibid., pp. 78-79). While the first sense is exemplified by the case of the Parthenon marbles, the latter is explored through the debates concerning museums in London in 1850s – expanding and deepening what Whitehead already presented in the article in Museums Revolutions.

Concluding the book, Whitehead expresses his hope that

«this book prompts some reflection on, or at least confusion about, the stories which museums tell and do not tell, the disciplinary stories which we tell ourselves and the disciplinary groups within which we situate ourselves» (ibid., p. 138).

I do believe his hope will be fulfilled. As far as I am concerned, it definitely is. Indeed this text offers tools and insights on museums which might be interesting to test and adapt by scholars who aim at investigating how museums contributed in constructing design – the practice of design, the culture of design and the history of design –, and to reflect on the role museums play today and can have for the future of design culture.

(1) For those who are interested in the role of the South Kensington Museum and in the debates that surrounded its birth, preparing the ground for building “applied arts” and design as a discrete field, other recent books which should be considered are:
Joseph Bizup, Manufacturing Culture. Vindications of Early Victorian Industry, Charlottesville – London, University of Virginia Press, 2003; and Lara Kriegel, Grand Designs. Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture, Durham – London, Duke University Press, 2007. Beyond institutional policies and strategies, in her study, Kriegel also considers a broad range of characters, and the role played by working men and artisans in the debate on the location of the South Kensington Museum in London, challenging in some way the centralizing ambitions of Henry Cole and its circle.