Design museums: the best in the world according to Aesthete

9 museums with impressive collections worth adding to your travel bucket list, from Mexico City to Seoul and New York to Milan

The history of design museums begins in the 19th century: collecting began with collections of decorative and applied arts, but many significant institutions appeared in our era, at the turn of the last century. The archives of design museums contain tens of thousands of objects - from legendary chairs created by star authors to the first models of popular smartphones, sneakers, fragile Chinese vases, posters, wallpaper, ceramic tableware, and bicycles. Design shapes the environment in which we live, and through it, our view of the world, values, and beliefs. To answer the question of who we are, where we came from and where we might end up in the future, sometimes it is very important to consider what surrounds us in everyday life. Furniture, architecture, fashion, graphics - all this exists for a reason, and there were reasons for the appearance of each of the objects.

A design museum can also be a great starting point when visiting a new city. They study the heritage of local culture and are able to tell a lot about the place where they are located, provide an opportunity to become more familiar with the regional flavor, and residency programs and grants attract talented young authors and contribute to the emergence of new creative projects, so that there is only more good design. We're talking about nine design museums that are worth visiting to get acquainted with iconic objects and, perhaps, rethink something in your view of the world.

Vitra Design Museum

Weil am Rhein, Germany

The Vitra campus is a true Mecca for design lovers. The museum exhibits design icons in elegant dialogue with architecture and art. Every year, up to ten exhibitions are held here, covering a wide range of topics, both in the main building, designed by the deconstructivist architect Frank Gehry and in other campus spaces, which were created by the famous authors of the era - from Herzog & de Meuron to Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano and SANAA.

London Design Museum

London, Great Britain

Originally opened in 1989 in a former banana warehouse, the London Design Museum moved to its new building in Kensington in 2016. Over three decades, the museum has become the world's leading institution dedicated to contemporary design in all its forms. Almost £80 million was spent on the renovation of the building, with John Pawson handling the interiors and Rem Koolhaas and OMA renovating the exterior and surrounding area. The museum received its largest single donation for the new building from the foundation of Terence Conran, the design enthusiast and founder of the Design Museum and the Boiler Room, a pre-museum project set up in the basement of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Cooper-Hewitt Museum

New York, USA

Located just steps from Central Park in New York City, the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Museum is one of America's most important cultural institutions dedicated to the study of design.

Cooper-Hewitt is located in the former mansion of industrial magnate Andrew Carnegie. Exhibitions at the museum cover a wide range of design topics, from the language of symbols to understanding the creative legacy left to the world by global epidemics. Founded by the Hewitt sisters in 1897 as the Cooper Union Museum of Decorative Arts, it now houses an impressive collection of more than 200,000 objects spanning 30 centuries.

Bauhaus Archive

Berlin, Germany

The Bauhaus Archive was created in the 1960s to preserve the legacy of the most influential school of the 20th century, which forever changed design and architecture. Walter Gropius, one of the founders and former director of the Bauhaus, designed the building, which opened in Berlin in 1979. It houses documents, drawings, photographs, and works of art related to the history and activities of the school throughout its existence - from its founding in Weimar in 1919 to its last years in Berlin.

Holon Design Museum

Holon, Israel

The Holon Museum is the first national design museum in Israel. It was conceived as a platform for the presentation of works by global and local authors, a space for the gradual creation of one’s own collection, and a showcase of Israeli design in a global context.

The municipality of Holon invited Ron Arad Architects (RAAL) to work on the project. The museum occupied an area of ​​3700 square meters. meters. Its facade is formed by five rings of Corten steel, which connect and branch to form the main structure. Steel strips serve not only as a visual dominant but also functionally form the skeleton of the museum, which supports the volumes and determines its position relative to the surrounding landscape.

Triennale

Milan, Italy

The Triennale is not only a place but also an exhibition itself, which was held every three years throughout the 20th century, with some interruptions. The first Triennale was held at the Villa Reale in Monza in the vicinity of Milan in 1923, and already in 1933, it moved to the city, where the Palazzo del Arte was built for it. The Triennale owes its history to iconic figures in the history of Italian design, such as Gio Ponti and Mario Sironi.

Palazzo del Arte, designed by the architect Giovanni Muzio, is one of the most important buildings of rationalist architecture, distinguished by precision of lines and balance of volumes, it is 12,000 square meters. meters in the very center of Milan, where the exhibition halls are located. The museum features a permanent exhibition dedicated to the history of Italian design and temporary projects. Today, the Triennale remains an important platform for dialogue between producers, representatives of creative industries, art, and the general public.

Danish Design Museum

Copenhagen, Denmark

The Danish Design Museum was founded in 1890. It is located in the historical center of Copenhagen, in the Frederiksstaden district, which represents one of the most significant architectural ensembles in the Rococo style in Europe.

The museum opened in the former King Frederick Hospital in 1926. The building was erected between 1752 and 1757, and in the 1920s it was restored and adapted for use in a new capacity by Danish architects Ivar Bentsen and Kaare Klint. Today, the Danish Design Museum is an open space for exhibitions, educational initiatives, workshops and lectures, promoting Danish design on the international stage and highlighting local best practices. It also houses Scandinavia's largest library of books on the history of design.

Mexican Design Museum

Mexico City, Mexico

MUMEDI Design Museum has become one of the main interdisciplinary platforms dedicated to the study of creative practices and the history of industrial and graphic design in Mexico. The space hosts exhibitions of local and international authors, which are accompanied by an educational program, and in addition to exhibition halls, the space houses a concept store and a hotel where you can stay to experience the local flavor.

The museum occupies the mansion of the Count Penasco family on the territory of the palace of the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes. The base of the building is part of the pyramid of the Aztec emperor Huehue Moctezuma Ilhuicamín, who lived in the 15th century, and its modern façade was designed in the late 18th century by a student of the architect Manuel Tolsa. The museum's motto echoes that of the Peñasco family, which can be found on the surviving portrait: "læva in circuitu oculos tuos et vide" - "raise your eyes and look around."

Dongdaemun Design Plaza

Seoul, South Korea

Dongdaemun Design Plaza is a true cultural hub in Seoul, hosting exhibitions, forums, conferences, and fashion shows. There is also a laboratory incubator for young designers. The space, reflecting the dynamism and rapidly changing cultural landscape of Seoul, opened in 2014 and instantly became a new attraction.

The bureau Zaha Hadid Architects worked on the fantastic futuristic building - the style of the studio and its creator is easily recognizable here. It is also one of the first government projects in Korea to be built using a 3D information modeling (BIM) system, making it easier to test hypotheses and change and adjust parameters along the way. For the cladding, 45,000 panels of different sizes and shapes were used, and the lighting was thought out so that the building looked spectacular at any time of the day and harmoniously complemented the ensemble of the Dongdaemun district.