Initiated by the Musée des arts et métiers and then developed with Sismo, an independent design and innovation studio, the exhibition “Invention/Design: Regards croisés”, presented from June 2, 2015 to March 6, 2016, explores the links between contemporary design and the history of invention through a selection of 100 objects. From Papin’s cooking pot to the connected pressure cooker, from the simple propeller to the bladeless fan, from the first typewriters to the most sophisticated laptops…
The work of famous scientists, inventors and other industrialists, who made the history of technology, is indeed the basis on which our 21st-century designers think about today’s design, enabling it to be innovative and adapt to new everyday uses.
The collections of the Musée des arts et métiers shed historical, technical, economic and social light on contemporary items from major public institutions and private collections.
Lamp IN-EI ISSEY MIYAKE / Mogura, 2012. Mine Kafon, Massoud Hassani, 2011. Hassani Design
© 4D Fotostudio
Organized around 4 themes common to the work of inventors and designers – the essential, boldness, context and curiosity – the exhibition demonstrates that design is not the shaping of an aesthetic, but of an intelligence.
An intelligence subject to production constraints, technical advances, consumer expectations and other daring projects, all illustrated by the objects that punctuate the tour, as well as by the videos, interviews, archive documents and other interactive features that complete the exhibition.
Simple bicycles, light bulbs, ice buckets, manometers, Issey Miyake lamps or more impressive pedestrian drawbridges, marine drones capable of cleaning up the oceans, computer programs generating wallpaper and other digitally-controlled machine tools, all show how designers take part in the design process.
Vélo Alerion, Charles Boulnois, Paule Guérin,
Till Breitfuss / Keim, 2014. Keim
How then are they influenced by the historical form of an invention? How do they free themselves from it? How do they seize on a vocabulary that they articulate, compose and enrich to innovate by improving aesthetics and usage, while simplifying the manufacturing process or reducing production costs?
These are just some of the questions that will be answered in this playful exhibition.
Musée des arts et métiers: 60 rue Réaumur – Paris 3rd arrondissement
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