The Design Museum is a museum founded in 1989, originally located by the River Thames near Tower Bridge in London, and later relocated to Kensington. The museum covers product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design. The museum operates as a registered charity, and all funds generated by ticket sales aid the museum in curating new exhibitions. Entrance is expected to be free to the museum’s permanent collection display, “Designer Maker User”. In June 2011 Sir Terence Conran donated £17.5 million to enable the Museum to move in 2016 from the warehouse to a larger site which formerly housed the Commonwealth Institute in west London. This landmark from the 1960s, a Grade II* listed building that had stood vacant for over a decade, was developed by a design team led by John Pawson who made the building fit for a 21st century museum, whilst at the same time retaining its spatial qualities.
A top-floor space under the spectacular museum roof, this gallery houses a permanent display, Designer Maker User, with key objects from the museum’s collection. It is the only one in the UK devoted exclusively to contemporary design and architecture. A restaurant, members’ lounge, residency studio and an events and gallery space are also located on the top floor. On the first floor, a design and architecture reference library is a resource for students, educators, researchers and designers. It will also include archive material relating to the history of the museum. The Swarovski Foundation Centre for Learning is a suite of learning facilities including a Design Studio, Creative Workshop, two seminar rooms and a Common Room. The Design Museum offices and main reception, a meeting room and a film studio are also located on the first floor. On the ground floor, the largest gallery in the new Design Museum showcases a programme of temporary exhibitions. Accessible from both Kensington High Street and Holland Park, the atrium welcomes visitors and acts as a events space. A main staircase from the atrium gives access to all floors and offers views to the first and second floors and the hyperbolic paraboloid roof. A double-height space spanning the two lower levels, Gallery Two hosts a programme of temporary exhibitions dedicated to architecture, fashion, furniture, product and graphic design. The Bakala Auditorium seats 194 people and provide a purpose-designed space for a programme of talks, seminars, debates and public and private events throughout the year. The basement accommodates a collections store, exhibition preparation spaces and a locker area for visitors.
The Design Museum ran the £25,000 Designer of the Year award from 2003 to 2006; in its first three years it was televised on BBC Two. In 2007 the new Director discontinued the Designer of the Year scheme, and in 2008 introduced the Designs of the Year award. Brit Insurance sponsored the awards from 2003 until 2011. The Designers in Residence programme at the Design Museum is a core part of the museum’s activity, and exists to provide emerging designers, across any discipline, with time and space away from their regular environment to reflect, research and consider new ways of developing their practice. Design Ventura, the Design Museum’s flagship learning project, provides students with the opportunity to develop design thinking, creative and business capabilities and employability skills. The project has been run since 2010 in partnership with Deutsche Bank as part of the bank’s youth engagement programme, Born to Be, and has seen over 36,000 students in 588 schools participate.
