I walked the South Bank again tonight, to the Design Museum, for a talk with founder and well-known modern design and culture commentator, Stephen Bayley.
I’d read his book on advertising, ‘Sex, drink, and fast cars’ when writing my art college dissertation on car advertising, and have read his numerous magazine and newspaper columns (currently in car and The Observer) ever since.
Opening on its present site in 1989, the museum can trace its roots back 25 years to 1982, and the Boilerhouse, its former incarnation at the V&A in South Kensington.
He had some interesting tales to tell.
Striking up a friendship with Terence Conran, who like Bayley, was passionate about modern design (be it consumer, industrial, or product), led to them both achieving the same vision of an institution celebrating the everyday things which inhabit our world.
At times, fighting against the sometimes stuffy V&A custodians wasn’t easy, but their argument was compelling, and eventually won the older collection of galleries over.
Not long after, and through a 300 square metre space in the old boilerhouse at the museum, the Boilerhouse was born. It proved to be tremendously successful, and in a short space of time, became London’s most visited gallery.
But, it could have been so very different.
A site in Milton Keynes was also looked at, as Conran’s highly successful Habitat was to relocate its headquarters to the new town, which being centrally placed, could have been seen as a good move for all sorts of logistical reasons.
But, the visionary at the V&A, saw (somewhat hesitantly at times) the potential complimentary nature of the two museums, and gave the Boilerhouse the green light. Thus, the foundations for the museum as we know it today were set.
Recalling stories of dinners at Downing Street with industry chiefs and a formidable Margaret Thatcher; how the museum’s current location was once a Korean army surplus store before the architects moved in; how there was no design education and recognition in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and now it’s almost proliferated to the point of saturation; and how design may have already seen its best moments; Bayley told them all engagingly, and with humour.
A charismatic storyteller no doubt, and with so many more stories to tell than could fill his 45-minute slot, the obviously design-literate audience could, and would have listened to them all.
And paid him more comments about his bright yellow (and Japanese) socks.
’25/25’, an exhibition charting design landmarks of the last 25 years, is currently running at the museum, and helps celebrate its milestone anniversary.
Details can be found here.
