When was the design museum built

A triple height space that leads up to the impressive curved roof. It was originally built in the s but the inside has been totally renovated by interior designer John Pawson. The new building offers three times the space that the old museum in Shad Thames had.

Everything is so well considered as you would expect from a building showcasing the best in architecture, fashion, graphic, product and industrial design. The Designers of the Year award was scrapped, and later replaced with Designs of the Year, which celebrated projects over individuals. Prior to taking on the role, he started out his career as the design and architecture critic for The Observer, later becoming the dean of the faculty of art, design and architecture at Kingston University, then co-founding architecture magazine Blueprint, going on to become its editor.

As part of his directorship, Sudjic launched Designs of the Year , which sees a judging panel of experts across various disciplines nominate projects across different categories.

The award has since been refined, narrowing down its category list and gaining a new exhibition sponsor, and now features six categories of architecture, fashion, graphics, digital, product and transport.

As well as an awards ceremony, the museum puts on a yearly exhibition of all the shortlisted projects. It first revealed designs of its new home in , which would be the former Commonwealth Institute building in Kensington, West London.

The space would be transformed by architect John Pawson and was initially due to open to the public in , though this ended up being pushed back by two years. Two years after originally intended, the Design Museum opened its doors at its new site on Kensington High Street on 24 November Three times the size of its former Shad Times building, the new museum features an open-plan design and the first ever free display of objects, which was a decision made by Sudjic to help make design more inclusive of a wider audience and banish elitist ideas about the industry.

The museum smashed its original target of , visitors a year, hitting one million visitors in a year and a half after opening. As part of the opening Sudjic decided to offer a free permanent display for the first time, designed by Morag Myerscough , allowing people to visit the museum without a fee.

This display now sits alongside paid-for, temporary exhibitions, with the launch show having been Fear and Love , a showcase of work from 11 international designers in response to global, political and social issues.

This has followed with an array of exhibitions over the last three years, including the colourful research of Dutch graphic designer Hella Jongerius , protest design produced by activist creatives, and an exploration of the monuments created by celebrated architect David Adjaye.

The sweeping pavilion roof — preserved from the original Grade II listed Commonwealth Institute with the structural expertise of OMA — symbolises its status as an architectural monument to design.

Original concrete floors were removed with radical engineering techniques directed by OMA , Allies and Morrison and Arup, in order to preserve the iconic roof and restructure the buildings into a contemporary design of sweeping simplicity. Pawson then carved the 10, sq m space up, making way for a colossal operation of a vast atrium with stepped seating, a permanent gallery, two temporary gallery spaces, a restaurant, auditorium, studios, library, archive, shop and new learning facilities.

By contrast, the gallery at -2 has high ceilings, open space and low display tables, showing the significant effect of architecture on exhibition display and visitor experience. Yet during the planning of Frank Gehry's first building in Europe, the original function was expanded. A museum was established as an independent foundation dedicated to the research and popularisation of design and architecture: the Vitra Design Museum. Despite its modest scale, the Vitra Design Museum building emerged as a programmatic work of deconstructivism, a collage of towers, ramps and cubes.