 | "The Big Dripper Coffee Pot and Filter" was designed by Michael Graves. It is made of porcelain and painted enamel. |
Housewares designed by renowed modern architects are showcased in an exhibition
opening on Tuesday, Sept. 25, at the Yale University Art Gallery.
T H I S
Architect-designed housewares produced by Swid Powell are showcased in Yale
University Art Gallery exhibition
Titled “The Architect’s Table: Swid Powell and Postmodern Design,” the
show will be on view through Jan. 6.
The exhibit celebrates the Swid Powell Collection and Records, now housed at
the Yale Art Gallery. The company, founded in 1982 by Nan Swid and Addie Powell,
produced innovative housewares designed by the foremost architects of the time,
including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Stephen Holl, Richard Meier, Robert A.M.
Stern (now dean of the Yale School of Architecture), Stanley Tigerman and Robert
Venturi, among others. The company’s blend of architecture, fashion and
decorative arts made it arguably the most important American design undertaking
of the 1980s, notes John Stuart Gordon, the Benjamin Attmore Hewitt Assistant
Curator of American Decorative Arts, who organized the show.
Through extensive research and marketing, Swid Powell helped architect-designers
transform their ideas into finished objects, explains Gordon, adding that the
company made progressive architecture accessible to a wider audience by introducing
a generation of consumers to high-quality, well-designed tablewares. The company’s
success has been credited to its novel advertising campaigns, the bold graphics
of its products and the role of famous architects. Within the architectural
community, Swid Powell had a lasting impact, says Gordon, as its efforts inspired
many architects to reevaluate their own relationships to decoration and fostered
a trend of architect-designed housewares that continues to this day.
“The Architect’s Table” features a selection of objects and
archival materials from the collection’s holdings of over 1,200 prototypes,
realized products, sketches and design drawings. Examples of best-selling designs,
such as Gwathmey-Siegel’s “Tuxedo” pattern plates and
Meier’s silver candlesticks, complement lesser-known works, like a place
setting by then-emerging architect Hadid. Numerous prototypes explore the design
process, as seen in a series of coffee pots by Venturi, each with a different
proposed decorative scheme. The exhibition also includes original advertising
images and brochures, as well as examples of architect-designed furniture from
the gallery’s permanent collection.
The exhibition is divided into six sections that underscore the breadth of
Swid Powell’s activities. The first section explores the design process
through sketches and prototypes, including a model for a water pitcher by Italian
designer Ettore Sottsass and a proposed design for a tea set by woodworker
Wendell Castle. Tigerman’s designs for Swid Powell, which blend wit and
fantasy with postmodern architectural theory, are the focus of the second section.
Included is a tea set that recreates in porcelain a complex of buildings he
constructed in Michigan.
In 1990, Swid Powell commissioned the “Architect’s Collection,” a
group of designs that form the third section. Produced at a time when popular
interest in Swid Powell was beginning to falter, these unique, often impractical
objects were bold statements of architectural ideals intended to capture public
attention for the company and architects, says Gordon. The fourth section focuses
on the work of Hadid, Holl and Michael Rotondi. In the early 1980s, notes Gordon,
these young architects were more famous for their writings than for their buildings,
and these objects can be understood as three-dimensional manifestations of
their abstract theories. The fifth section looks beyond architecture to works
designed by painters and sculptors, including a plate emblazoned with a photograph
by Robert Mapplethorpe. It also looks at Swid Powell’s advertising, which
focused as much on the personalities behind the products as on the products
themselves. The final section celebrates the myriad architects and designs
that made Swid Powell famous. Emulating a table set for a dinner party, it
brings together many of Swid Powell’s most iconic objects.
Related programming
Gordon will present an exhibition talk on Wednesday, Sept. 26, at 12:20 p.m.
That event is free and open to the public. A master class, “Design by
Architects,” will be given in three sessions by the curator at 5:30 p.m.
on Thursdays, Sept. 20 and 27, and Oct. 18. The series will investigate the
role of architect as designer from the mid-20th-century through today. The
fee for the series is $30 for museum members; $45 for non-members; and free
for students with valid I.D. Enrollment is limited to 12 participants. To register,
call (203) 432-9525.
The Yale University Art Gallery, located at the corner of Chapel and York streets,
is open to the public free of charge 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; until 8 p.m. on Thursday, September to June; and 1-5
p.m. on Sunday. For additional information, visit http://artgallery.yale.edu
or call (203) 432-0600. The gallery is wheelchair accessible.
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Activist and author Gloria Steinem to visit as Chubb Fellow
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Campus Notes
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