I’m glad I dragged myself out on New Year’s Eve Day to catch Design for a Living World at the Cooper Hewitt in NY. Maybe you too should ease back into work — take a half day, spend the afternoon in Andrew Carnegie’s mansion. The Monday after New Year’s is hard, I know.
While the other exhibit on display, Design USA, was a crowded retread of design work that I have seen many times before, by designers whose work I am already well familiar with — I didn’t leave it feeling any more illuminated or inspired than I did when I walked in — I really enjoyed Design for a Living World. The exhibit organizer, Nature Conservancy, and exhibit co-curators, Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton, commissioned ten designers to develop new uses for sustainably grown and harvested materials from endangered ecosystems.
Abbott Miller also designed the exhibition, with Brian Raby, Jeremy Hoffman, and Kristen Spilman (Pentagram — the exhibition photos on their site are worlds better than my breaking-the-rules sneaky pics). It was tastefully, and thoughtfully, designed, with content that was succinct, organized, and very interesting in its explanation of the materials, the designers, and the ecosystems. On view were the final commissioned pieces from each designer, along with process sketches and experiments.
Wrapping the walls of the rooms were image panels, printed by dye-sublimation directly onto aluminum (manufactured with 94% recycled content). These appeared to glow and glitter. I really love the dye-sub printing process. The image panels were mounted to angled wooden scaffolding, made from FSC certified plywood. The legs of the display cases were also made from the plywood. More details about the “green” considerations for the design — of exhibition and of print — can be found in these posts from the Cooper Hewitt blog. The exhibit felt both minimal and rich, because of its materials and the attention to details. (Notice the little round number pucks in the display case, two photos below.)
One part of the exhibit that was particularly gorgeous (see here for a photo because I couldn’t get one, foiled by a docent!) was a long display case in the center of a long room, central within the exhibit space. I happened to come to this at the end of the exhibit, but just as easily I could have seen it first, and it would have worked either way. Printed on the base of the case was a black and white world map, and placed on their locations of origin were samples of the materials used by the ten designers. It was simple and beautiful, and tied everything together.
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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed or replaced. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 4 January 2010.