Boston Design Museum

School of the Museum of Fine Arts is a somewhat separate entity from the MFA itself, and might belong in the first group. The part of Harvard you'd be most interested in is the Graduate School of Design.
 
I would assume that the connection between those institutions and their parent institutions are still close enough that they could be hindered from joining the consortium without consent.
Still, they seem to be the most obvious path to the larger institutions. Thanks.
 
czsz said:
^ In Brockton?! Does it get any visitors?
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I've been to a few shows there, and it seems to be a well run museum- however, I have heard that they are having trouble drawing enough visitors. I recommend it for anyone who likes sculpture, but it's not craft in the sense that you'd generally think.
 
They would do a lot better if they were in a town that tourists had other reasons to visit -- Lowell, Salem, Gloucester, etc.

They're a long way from the center of Brockton, too, as I discovered once when I took the commuter train out there.
 
Another obscure suburban Boston museum with some design components...the "National Heritage Museum" in Lexington. I've never heard anything about it, only seen it from the road:

http://www.monh.org/

Apparently it's run by the Freemasons (seriously).

Members of this forum might be interested in this exhibit:
http://www.monh.org/Default.aspx?tabid=473
 
That's a cool place. A few years ago, they had an exhibit of neon advertising signs. Another time, an exhibit all about diners.

And here's a design-related exhibit they will have up for a few more weeks.

Back to Fuller Craft: their current exhibitions include one by a really cool toy designer I know in Somerville.
 
Thanks for posting info about the Loewy exhibit, Ron -- I'm a big fan.

Your plan is ambitious, statler, but the more I think about it, the less crazy it seems. Considering the history of manufacturing in Massachusetts (textiles, to shoes, to motorcycles) it's surprising that this sort of all-embracing institution doesn't already exist.
 
The idea is not crazy, but someone like myself trying spearhead it is. I have zero experience, no background and virtually no real knowledge of the design field.
In fact, I'm not even sure what exactly the 'design field' is.
It seems to encompass an awful lot:
  • Fashion
  • Urban design
  • Architecture
  • Industrial design
  • Graphic design
  • Landscape design
  • Sculpture
  • Art & Crafts
  • Set design
  • Auto/boat design
  • Furniture design
  • Web/Computer design

Granted, there is probably some overlap on that list but how could you encompass all that under on roof? Where would you find a curator that is knowledgeable in all those diverse fields?

I'm looking into other design museums to see if I can get feel for how they work. So far I've found;
  • London Design Musuem which seems to be the big fish right now. I am however disappointed that they are featuring the ipod as the main display. Is that still really the most exciting thing in the design field right now? Really?
  • Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum which is part of the Smithsonian but located in NYC
  • MODA (Museum of Design Atlanta) Atlanta. Huh. Who knew?
  • La Triennale di Milano. I guess it would make sense for Milan to have a design museum. Does it really make as much sense for Boston to have one? The Clipper Ship, The Converse Chuck, the Mach III Razor and....?

I'm sure there are a lot more museums out there (does there need to be another?) I just found those in a quick Google search. Feel free to add others.

In the mean time, I'm looking into how to form a non-profit. Looks tricky.

Finally, here is an interesting site for some design porn:
Oobject.com

By the way I'll be updating the original proposal as I get more information. Thanks everybody.
 
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Does it seem reasonable to set up the museum as a cooperative of the smaller museums?
The way I imagine it would work would be that the museum would have it own smallish permanent collection but that would be suplimented by rotating galleries from member organizations. In turn, items from the permanent gallery would be loaned out to member organizations.
This way, the member organizations get 'free' advertising for their own museums and the 'central' museum gets a fresh oft-updated collection.
The major problems with this are that the really small organizations will only be able host so many galleries before repeating themselves. They may also be afraid they might 'give away the store', by letting people see all their exhibits without visiting their museum.
I can't think of any other way this could work though.
 
They may also be afraid they might 'give away the store', by letting people see all their exhibits without visiting their museum.
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Whatever deal was worked out with them would probably include shared revenue. They'd make far more this way than by continuing to hope that clientele would ship out to Brockton to see their collection.

BTW, one of the largest design museums in the world is the Victoria & Albert in London.
 
I'm probably getting too far ahead of myself, but I'm still trying to work out the logistics of how this museum would work.

Would each member organization get their own gallery space or would there be just a few galleries and members take turns in the space?
Maybe there would be rotating theme exhibits, so that, for example, every member would bring in all their mid-century modern pieces, or all graphic design pieces for x number of months.

Revenue sharing is a good idea but difficult.
Does each member an even share of the receipts each day? If so, than larger organizations that can loan more pieces get shafted.
If it is done by per piece, than smaller organizations may not see the value of joining. Plus, if one museum loans a rare piece that generates a lot of attraction they would be get the same as a museum that loans some dusty relic that takes up space. That would lead to trying to measure foot traffic to each piece and figuring out their value in an effort to make it fair.

Again, not exactly something that needs to be solved right now. :cool:
 
You could probably work out some average that would satisfy the larger contributors that their contributions are worth more but that still makes contributions by the smaller ones a worthwhile investment.

As for the gallery space, it probably makes sense to keep it flexible and not partition the museum by contributor organization so that the museum has maximum control over display, logistics, and such.
 
^ No back to school plans (too old, way too jaded). Some days, I'd rather empty wastebaskets at a place like IDEO than subject myself to certain aspects of my daily toil. And I actually like my job...
 
Bump.

Three years later this still sounds like an exciting idea...
 
Yep. And given the buzz of the Marimekko exhibit at the Design Research Bldg. in Cambridge, I'd say there's at least some interest beyond the servers that host this forum.
 
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