ID100Y, how designers celebrate design history

Last year I read a book about Peter Behrens who was the first industrial designer in history. Talking with Daun, a friend from my time at HfG Offenbach we discussed how can designers celebrate the 100th birthday of industrial design. We have no material exhibits and no background of an historicians education. So we started to redesign some design classics of the past.

See the results and vote for your favourite design!

Triennale Design Museum in Milan

On 6th December opened the Triennale Design Museum. Here is an adverting film about it (only in Italian):

Nordic Museum in Seattle hears focus on design

In Seattle a 75,000 square foot museum will be constructed at a cost of $50 million. The basic concept was a museum that can host major international exhibits, showcase local Scandinavian history and art, while becoming an international level institution emphasizing Nordic design, culture and heritage. The concept was changed from a historic towards a more design oriented museum. It could be the first museum of Scandinavian design outside Europe and the first design museum dedicated on the design of an other country.

Read more in the article of Ballardnewstribune.com

Is the museums exhibition design worth to be preserved?

A museum preserves and exhibits this. Sometimes the building is an exhibit itself, if it is built by an famous architect, or if it is of historic relevance.

But what if the exhibition design becomes historic as well? In 1976 the famous functionalist German graphic designer Otl Aicher made the corporate design of the "Historisches Museum Frankfurt". From pictograms to displays and prospectus. Today only some fragments remain in the prehistoric and numismatic department.

The clear functional design of the Ulm School (founded by Inge Scholl, Otl Aicher and Max Bill) already vanished from daily life, and my generation could experience it only by books or some exhibits. In this museum somebody can see the perhaps last remaining original exhibition made by Otl Aicher. It's future is unsafe because the geat parts of the Museum will be teared down and replaced by a new building.