Shaping Modernity: Design 1880–1980

23 December 2009 - 15 October 2011

Paolo Lomazzi, Donato D'Urbino, and Jonathan De Pas. Blow Inflatable Armchair. 1967 PVC plastic. Manufactured by Zanotta S.p.A., Italy The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the manufacturer

SHAPING MODERNITY: DESIGN 1880–1980

December 23, 2009–Ongoing
Architecture and Design Galleries, third floor

The new installation of the Architecture and Design Galleries features a selection of visionary objects, graphics, architectural fragments, and textiles from the Museum’s collection that reveal the attempts of successive generations to shape their experience of living in the modern world. Roughly three hundred works are thematically organized into five installations: Art Nouveau objects and posters 
from 1890 to 1914, featuring stunning designs by Hector Guimard, Antoné Gaudi, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh; posters and graphics of the New Typography movement (1927–37) (on view through July 12); works from 1925 to 1940, including a giant railroad-car spring and a billboard for Ford Motors, that focus on the relationship of mind, body, and machine; a survey of the influential Good Design movement (1944–56), including iconic pieces by Marcel Breuer, Charles and Ray Eames, and Hans Wegner; and works from the 1960s
 and 1970s that merged the clean and elegant forms of modern design with new materials, colors, and forms, opening up new possibilities for more playful, expendable design.
Organized by Juliet Kinchin, Curator, and Aidan O’Connor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design.

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