Saturday, 4 December 2004 | Levent OZLER
Designing Modern Life
A History of Modern Design
6 November 2004 to 27 November 2005
From the radical simplicity of an apartment designed by Charlotte Perriand
and Le Corbusier in 1920s Paris, to the 1960s vision of the future depicted in
Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Design Museum is
exploring how design has transformed daily life in the past century in
Designing Modern Life to be presented for a year from 6 November 2004.
By reconstructing innovative design projects which dominated future
developments in design, this exhibition will show how ingenious designers
have harnessed advances in materials and technologies, as well as cultural,
social and behavioural changes, to modernise how we work, rest and play.
Designing Modern Life will include reconstructions of Perriand and Le
Corbusier’s model apartment created for the 1929 Salon d’Automne in Paris,
a London Underground platform in the late 1930s, one of the rooms designed
by the Danish architect Arne Jacobsen for his showpiece SAS Royal Hotel in
Copenhagen during the 1950s and a 1960s office equipped by Dieter Rams.
Drawn from the Design Museum Collection and other important archives, this
exhibition will also deconstruct the design histories of specific objects
including the book – from Penguin’s pioneering 1930s paperbacks and Bruce
Mau’s influential work for Zone Books during the late 1980s, to the exquisite
books designed and made by Irma Boom today – the chair and the website.
The exhibition will end with an installation of the work of the provocative
Spanish designer Martí Guixé. Serious in intent but wickedly humorous, the
objects and pieces of furniture designed by Guixé have a dual function as
commentaries on modern design. This specially commissioned installation
created by Martí Guixé for the Design Museum will feature the Statement
Chairs he has created by customising cheap plastic garden furniture.
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