Great design exhibitions of the past #3

The Origin of Things (Dutch: Het ontstaan der dingen) was an exhibition from 10th May to 27th July 2003 at Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Important contemporary and past designers were presented with a sample and its design and production process.

The catalogue edited by Thimo Te Duits with good contributions is unfortunatly sold out.

300% Spanish Design

The travelling exhibition was first made as a Spanish contribution for the Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan and was shown at the Saitama Museum of Modern Art. Later it travelled around the world. I visited the exhibition in Athens.

It is nothing unusual that a county presents itself by it's design, but it was new to show a country's history by design. 100 chairs 100 posters and 100 lamps stand for the development of Spanish industrialisation and culture.

The tour through time begins with Gaudí’s modernisme in the Art Deco period, and moves forward to the rationalist Gatepac movement until functional and post-modernism industrial design.

See also our picture album from the exhibition:

300% Spanish Design

Great design exhibitions of the past #1

DESIGN HEUTE
Frankfurt, Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) 1988


The late 1980ies in industrial design were dominated by the "anything-goes" mentality. The DAM decided to anwer with an exhibition what could be criteria and impulses for future design developments. This exhibition organised by Prof. Volker Fischer showed from functionalism to postmodernism all design movements and companies of this time.

The catalogue is itself an important discourse and was edited many times. Design authors like Jochen Gros, Volker Fischer, Volker Albus and Matteo Thun write about themes like "miniaturisation and design" or "neo-barock influences in postmodernism".

Myself in 2000 I learned from this book to prepare my design studies.