home futures living in yesterday’s tomorrow Tour Proposal
designmuseum.org
The Design Museum Touring Programme The programme was set up in 2002 with the aim of bringing design exhibitions to audiences around the UK and internationally. Since then, the museum has toured more than 120 exhibitions to 100 venues in 27 countries worldwide. The Design Museum’s touring exhibitions range in size from 150 to 1000 square metres and cover all areas of design – architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics, product and more.
Contents 6 Exhibition overview 8 Exhibition structure 32 Exhibitions details 35 Terms and conditions 36 Contact
About the Design Museum The Design Museum is the world’s leading museum devoted to architecture and design. Its work encompasses all elements of design, including fashion, product and graphic design. Since it opened its doors in 1989, the museum has displayed everything from an AK-47 to high heels designed by Christian Louboutin. It has staged over 100 exhibitions, welcomed over five million visitors and showcased the work of some of the world’s most celebrated designers and architects including Paul Smith, Zaha Hadid, Jonathan Ive, Miuccia Prada, Frank Gehry, Eileen Gray and Dieter Rams. On 24 November 2016, the Design Museum relocated to Kensington, West London. Architect John Pawson converted the interior of a 1960s modernist building to create a new home for the Design Museum, giving it three times more space in which to show a wider range of exhibitions and significantly extend its learning programme.
EUROPEAN MUSEUM OF THE YEAR 2018 In May 2018, the Design Museum was awarded the title of European Museum of the Year and commended by the panel for its effort in developing ‘an important democratic and multilayered intercultural dialogue, with a significant social impact in the community.’
The Design Museum, London
EXHIBITION VIEW, THE DESIGN MUSEUM, LONDON, 2018
Exhibition overview Living in Yesterday’s Tomorrow The ‘home of the future’ has long intrigued designers and popular culture alike. Bringing together avant-garde speculations with contemporary objects and new commissions, Home Futures explores today’s home through the prism of yesterday’s imagination. The exhibition asks: are we living in the way that pioneering architects and designers once predicted, or has our idea of home proved resistant to real change? Through more than 150 objects and experiences, Home Futures explores the key social and technological aspirations that have driven change in the home. Historical notions of the mechanised home and the compact home are displayed alongside contemporary phenomena such as connected devices and the sharing economy. Rare works on display include original furniture from the Smithsons’ House of the Future (1956), original footage from the General Motors Kitchen of Tomorrow (1956), Home Environment by Ettore Sottsass (1972) and an original model of Total Furnishing Unit by Joe Colombo (1972).
Exhibition view, the Design Museum, London, 2018
EXHIBITION OVERVIEW | 6
Exhibition structure Living with others Living smart Living on the move Living with less Living autonomously Domestic arcardia
Living with others We think of our home as an inherently private place, where we retreat from the gaze of others. Yet the twentieth century produced numerous visions of technology opening up this closed shell: beaming the world in, and beaming the home out. This section explores the way in which we negotiate privacy in the home, and the impact of media on domestic behaviour, from the early Soviet dystopias of the total loss of privacy to the 1980s exploration of the role of telecommunications in the home. Key references include Sergei Eisenstein’s sketches for the Glass House, Ugo La Pietra’s Telematic House, Dunne & Raby’s Electro-Draught Excluder, Jurgen Bey’s Linen Cupboard House, and Superflux’s film Uninvited Guests.
7 | EXHIBITION STRUCTURE
1. Photography commission 2. Exhibition view, the Design Museum, London 2018
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EXHIBITION VIEW, THE DESIGN MUSEUM, LONDON, 2018
Living smart Push-button fantasies were common to the 1950s ‘home of the future’. The modernist vision of efficiency produced streamlined consumer goods that promised to make housewives’ lives easier. This section traces the modernist ideal of the ‘home as machine’ and pairs it with the contemporary vision of the ‘smart home’. Exhibits include original works by the illustrator Heath Robinson, depicting comic household contraptions, and the model of Villa Arpel from Jacques Tati’s film Mon Oncle juxtaposed with a range of smart home devices and experiences.
1. Photography Commission 2. Exhibition view, the Design Museum, 2018
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EXHIBITION VIEW, THE DESIGN MUSEUM, LONDON, 2018
Living on the move In the 20th century visions of a fluid, nomadic way of life were often articulated as a critique of consumerism and ownership, proposing ‘a world without objects’. The Living on the move section brings together nomadic visions from this era with contemporary examples of the sharing economy. Collages by Superstudio, illustrations by Archigram and a life-size prototype of Home Environment by Ettore Sottsass are displayed alongside a provocative film by Beka & Lemoine called “Selling Dreams” that explores one man’s life spent in hotel rooms.
14 | EXHIBITION OVERVIEW
1. Photography Commission 2. Exhibition view, the Design Museum, 2018
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EXHIBITION VIEW, THE DESIGN MUSEUM, LONDON, 2018
Living with less With the growth of urban populations, the question of space has become a major preoccupation. One recurring ideal of the 20th century was that housing shortages could be solved with fully fitted home units and micro-living solutions. Joe Colombo’s Total Furnishing Unit (1972), a multifunctional unit for every domestic need, is presented through original drawings and a model produced as part of the project’s design development. Contemporary examples of living with less include Gary Chang’s Hong Kong Transformer apartment (a microapartment with shifting walls) and a newly commissioned study of minimal dwellings by the architect Pier Vittorio Aureli.
1. Photography Commission 2. Exhibition view, the Design Museum, 2018
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EXHIBITION VIEW, THE DESIGN MUSEUM, LONDON, 2018
Living autonomously Visions of a good life in the 1970s often involved some form of self-sufficiency, whether making your own furniture or growing your own food. This section explores self-reliant models of domestic life that are environmentally responsible and often anticonsumerist. Living a0utonomously draws parallels between Enzo Mari’s Autoprogettazione (1974), a design guide to assembling furniture from basic materials using just a hammer and nails, and contemporary Open Source design. It features a newly commissioned series of modular furniture by Brusselsbased design studio Open Structures.
22 | EXHIBITION ADAPTATION
1. Photography Commission 2. Atelier van Lieshout, Autocrat drawing, 1997
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EXHIBITION VIEW, THE DESIGN MUSEUM, LONDON, 2018
Domestic arcadia The notion of the ‘home of the future’ as a machine for living was an attempt to modernise domestic life, but it ignored the human need for ritual. Counter to modernist visions of progress, some designers sought to emphasize that our homes are also places of irrational and emotional needs. The Domestic arcadia section questions the functional role of the home through dreamlike, surreal visions that render this most intimate environment in novel and unfamiliar forms. Furniture and interiors from the Italian Radical Design movement by Pietro Derossi, Michele de Lucchi and Gaetano Pesce is be compared with contemporary design by the Bouroullec brothers among others.
1. Photography Commission 2. Exhibition view, the Design Museum, 2018
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EXHIBITION VIEW, THE DESIGN MUSEUM, LONDON, 2018
Exhibition details Curators Dr Eszter Steierhoffer is Senior Curator at the Design Museum Justin McGuirk is Chief Curator at the Design Museum Exhibition design SO–IL Graphic design John Morgan studio Venues Design Museum, London 07 November 2018 – 24 March 2019 IKEA Museum, Almhult Sweden April – September 2019 Tour availbility From September 2019 Space approx. 700 – 900 square metres
Exhibition view, the Design Museum, London, 2018
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EXHIBITION VIEW, THE DESIGN MUSEUM, LONDON, 2018
Terms and conditions
Contact
Hire fee, on request, includes:
To find out more about this exhibition and other tours available from 2019 onwards, please contact:
– Curation and exhibition concept – Tour management by Design Museum staff – Exhibits – Images and films – Exhibition text in English – 2D and 3D design concept – Selected display kit Costs payable by the venue: – Hire fee, in instalments – Exhibition and graphic design adaptation – Share of transport and crating costs – Storage of empty crates – Nail-to-nail insurance – All costs relating to exhibition production – Installation and de-installation costs – Marketing
Charlotte Bulté Senior Touring Manager charlotte.bulte@designmuseum.org 00 44 (0) 20 3862 5883 Caroline Grewar Head of Exhibitions caroline.grewar@designmuseum.org 00 44 (0) 20 3862 5890 designmuseum.org/exhibitions/touring-exhibitions
PICTURE CREDITS Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors and omissions notified to the museum will be corrected in subsequent editions. Cover, Designed by © John Morgan studio; p.2 © Gravity Road; pp.3-4, © Felix Speller; p.5, © Eva Herzog; p.7, © Anton Gottlob; p.8, © Eva Herzog; pp.9-10, © Eva Herzog; p.11, © Anton Gottlob; pp.12,© Eva Herzog; pp.13-14 Eva Herzog; p.15 © Anton Gottlob; pp.16-18 © Eva Herzog; p.19, © Anton Gottlob; p.20, © Eva Herzog; pp.21-22, © Iwan Baan; p.23, © Anton Gottlob; p.24, Courtesy of Atelier Van Lieshot; pp.25-26 © Eva Herzog; p.27, © Anton Gottlob; p.28 © Eva Herzog; pp.29-31 © Eva Herzog, pp.33-34, © Eva Herzog. Cover image: Design Museum Publishing
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