The new permanent home for the Design Museum in Kensington will open on the 24th November 2016 it has been announced.
Opening on Kensington High street later this year, the Design Museum’s new home is the result of a £83 million transformation of a listed landmark building from the 1960’s.
The new museum will for the first time include a free permanent collection titled Designer Maker User, that will tell the story of contemporary design through these three interconnected roles. It is the first time in its history the museum will have a permanent collection.
Highlights of the collection will include: the Vespa Clubman designed by Corradino d’Ascanio and made by Piaggio; Ettore Sottsass and Perry King’s Valentine typewriter for Olivetti; Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert’s British road signs; the Sony TPS L2 Walkman designed by Nobutoshi Kihara; the Obama ‘Progress’ poster by Shepard Fairey; the GRiD ‘Compass’ the first laptop computer by Bill Moggridge; Mikhail Kalashnikov’s AK47 assault rifle and Ossie Clarke and Celia Birtwell’s Paper dress.
The opening exhibitions for the museum have also been revealed. Opening the new Design Museum from the museum’s Chief Curator, Justin McGuirk, is Fear and Love: Reactions to a Complex World. This display will feature a series of installations that provide an insight into our hopes and doubts about the pace and impact of change. Designs of the Year will also return for a ninth year.
Acclaimed designer John Pawson is remodelling the interior of the Grade II* listed former Commonwealth Institute building, in a project that will increase the museum’s size threefold, enabling a significantly extended learning programme and a greater range of exhibitions.
Deyan Sudjic, Director of the Design Museum said: “This move will redefine the Design Museum as the most inspiring, exciting and engaging contemporary design and architecture museum in the world, with 10,000sqm of space, and a target of 650,000 visitors each year. Design is the way to ask questions about what technology is doing to us, to explore how the world will look and work as well as to define new aesthetic approaches.”
The museum’s current site in Bermondsey will close to the public on the 30th June, with its final event being Weekend Punk, a two-day celebration of the influence and legacy of punk design, which is part of the year-long Punk London festival.