Cold War Modern Design @ V&A Museum

Ever thought of Cold war as a background for creativity?

Well...It was...and it was also a background for the development of art, design and cinema.

Until last 11^th of January the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) explored this side of the Cold War through an impressive exhibition called "Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970". The exhibition invites visitors to go beyond the common imagery linked to this time of the history, and to look at how designers, artists and creative minds reacted creatively to it, in both sides of the "iron curtain".

It was a period  of anxiety and tension, but also of great optimism and unprecedented technological advancement... and well,this made me think again that where there is contrast and chaos there creativity flourishes...

It's nice how everything was all connected, from propaganda posters to interior design objects, organised into four rooms
with distinctive themes and chronological continuity - post-war reconstruction, political ideologies, space and the future.  

What particularly impressed me was also how the exhibition showcased the deep connection between cinema and design and how brands of that time, started to experiment with arts and different artists and techniques.

One of the first video/vj experiment of the history was in fact beautifully displayed : Le "Poème électronique" (Electronic Poem) composed in 1958 by Edgard Varèse, the father of electronic music with Iannis Xénakis under the direction of Le Corbusier. The three created for the Philips Pavilion structure the first electronic-spatial environment that combines architecture, film, light and music to create and immersive and holistic experience, with a narrative that surreally compares misery of past (the war) and hope of the future (the technology).

After this, the journey lead me straight into the display of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey' masterpiece. The movie was displayed in a kind of tube that, physically and symbolically, connected a room with the first computer experiments and models of communication towers, with a "future room" filled in with robots and futuristic interior design objects from Superstudio, to reflect both the man's fear about possible dominance by computers and the desire and aspiration for a better life.

The last hall displayed the first eco design visionary experiments
almost anticipating the actual concerns about our fragile eco-system.

Propaganda materials, experimental product design, space-age architecture, visionary fashion and idealist politics, every piece showed me the huge impact that the Cold Was has had on modern culture.

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The exhibition was really huge and beautiful!

Many more observation could be done...

This is mutechlab_watch point of view

hope you'll enjoy it

Comment and share what you liked

More info:

http://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/future_exhibs/cold_war/index.html

see ya

pz

Pics 1 and 2: Remeber this iconic pieces of furniture? The first one is a modular shelves system symbol of freedom the second is one the iconic chair of the time that we still can find in modern houses.