Luigi Colani - Translating Nature

A window on the fantastical world of Luigi Colani, this exhibition brings together Colani's extraordinary large scale prototype designs including trucks, aircraft and cars. A great maverick of 20th Century design, with a career spanning almost six decades, Colani has applied his organic design style to produce biodynamic cars, boats, planes, ceramics and consumer goods, as well as creating alternative futuristic concepts for transport and architecture. A powerful influence on contemporary designers such as Ross Lovegrove and Future Systems, this retrospective of Colani’s work is curated by Albrecht Bangert and designed by Nigel Coates.

Link: See Luigi Colani at the Design Museum

Ettore Sottsass - Work in Progress

Best known as the founder of the groundbreaking 1980's design group Memphis, this doyen of Italian design has also designed glass and ceramics for Alessi and landmark electronic products for Olivetti. To mark Ettore Sottsass' 90th birthday we are exhibiting his most iconic designs drawn from six decades of his on-going career.

This exhibition coincides with Bonhams Vision 21 auction, April 25, offering furniture and works from the Memphis design collective.

Link: Ettore Sottsass at the Design Museum

25/25 - Celebrating 25 Years of Design

In 2007 it will be 25 years since the opening of the Boilerhouse – the original incarnation of the Design Museum. To mark this significant anniversary, as the museum sets about a major expansion programme, we are organising an exhibition that sets out to map the key design landmarks of the last quarter of a century. To help us, we are inviting 25 individuals – designers or those with a special interest in design – to select 25 objects that, as they see it, represent the best, or the most characteristic design of the period.

Link: See 25/25 at the Design Museum

Zaha Hadid - Architecture and Design

Zaha Hadid won the Pritzker Prize in 2004, when she had only just completed her first substantial project, the Rosenthal Centre for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati. Now she is busy working on projects that range from masterplans in Singapore and Istanbul, to an opera house in China, a museum in Rome, and a skyscraper in Dubai. In the last year Hadid has opened two substantial buildings in Germany: a car factory for BMW and the Phaeno Science Centre, for which she was shortlisted for the 2006 RIBA Stirling Prize. Both have triumphantly demonstrated her ability to translate the essence of her virtuoso spatial invention in solid form.

The Design Museum exhibition will be the first full scale show of Zaha Hadid’s work in the UK. It will also be one of the largest projects undertaken by the Design Museum, spread over two floors of galleries, and will focus on this recent extraordinarily productive period in Hadid’s work.

Link: See Zaha Hadid at the Design Museum