The dream of design

“By 1954, consumer­ism, in terms of the mater­i­al­istic ‘Amer­ican Dream’ was viewed with grow­ing suspi­cion by the Eames, lead­ing Charles Eames to say, ‘Some­how we find the dream was incom­plete’.” ^[1]

Behind this appar­ently simple state­ment, the prob­lem raised by the most famous Amer­ican designer of the 20^th century is crucial, and raises the now historic ques­tion: what is design? This project for a museum as a place for collect­ing and educat­ing through exhib­i­tions is a response to the first Brit­ish museum devoted to design: Marl­bor­ough House (1852), precursor of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Dream of Design traces the history of design and takes stock of the redefin­i­tions of the discip­line. These lectures defend the idea that, contrary to popu­lar belief, design­ers are char­ac­ter­ised by their abil­ity to tran­scend categor­ies and medi­ums in order to expand their field of oper­a­tion ever further, a real­ity that any 21^st-century design museum must be able to embrace.

With these two lectures – “What is design?” and “The museum from Henry Cole to the present day” – Midal will take us from world history to local specificit­ies, from the Amer­ican dream to the “mudac dream”, help­ing us to contex­tu­al­ise and refine the museum’s collec­tion and archiv­ing strategy.