I have been reading about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a back-up storage facility for the seeds of the world. It is located on a remote Norwegian island about 810 miles from the North Pole.
It made me think something similar is needed for the world's most important design objects. For example, in the event of world-wide catastrophe, (nuclear, climatic, geological etc.) it would be good to have places where examples of the wheel were securely stored to save future societies the trouble of inventing it.
The only problem, in the event of total social disorder, would be maintaining and communicating knowledge of the locations of the Design Vaults and the importance of their contents.
For a number of reasons, existing "design" collections such as the one in MOMA (New York's Museum of Modern Art) will not be good for the purpose I have in mind. First of all, large urban areas such as New York City are likely to be uninhabitable and perhaps inaccessible. Second, a collection such as MOMA's is much too voluminous and frivolous. For example, it has 413 tables, 564 chairs, 94 stools and 77 ashtrays. It seems to be oriented more towards preserving fashion and idiosyncratic design proliferation than towards preserving knowledge of making essential design objects.
I suppose there is some small benefit in knowing that at some point humans began to use bent wood for chairs and later progressed to bent metal and then to totally malleable plastic and anything else they could form into the shape of a chair. But I, for one, would find the design history of wheels from their probable origin as potter's wheels through their use for transportation up to such extravagances as the Ferris wheel much more interesting.
In any event, the focus of a really useful design vault would be to enable people to produce and use those designs most needed to conduct a healthy civilized life. It would be much more instructive than the design exhibits aimed at informing shoppers about fashionable "design" objects.
My choice for the location of a design repository would be something like Piz Gloria, the mountain-top restaurant at Murren, Switzerland.
I would choose it for its height above sea level, geological stability and the likelihood the Swiss will be in good shape even when the rest of the world is in chaos.
It made me think something similar is needed for the world's most important design objects. For example, in the event of world-wide catastrophe, (nuclear, climatic, geological etc.) it would be good to have places where examples of the wheel were securely stored to save future societies the trouble of inventing it.
The only problem, in the event of total social disorder, would be maintaining and communicating knowledge of the locations of the Design Vaults and the importance of their contents.
For a number of reasons, existing "design" collections such as the one in MOMA (New York's Museum of Modern Art) will not be good for the purpose I have in mind. First of all, large urban areas such as New York City are likely to be uninhabitable and perhaps inaccessible. Second, a collection such as MOMA's is much too voluminous and frivolous. For example, it has 413 tables, 564 chairs, 94 stools and 77 ashtrays. It seems to be oriented more towards preserving fashion and idiosyncratic design proliferation than towards preserving knowledge of making essential design objects.
I suppose there is some small benefit in knowing that at some point humans began to use bent wood for chairs and later progressed to bent metal and then to totally malleable plastic and anything else they could form into the shape of a chair. But I, for one, would find the design history of wheels from their probable origin as potter's wheels through their use for transportation up to such extravagances as the Ferris wheel much more interesting.
In any event, the focus of a really useful design vault would be to enable people to produce and use those designs most needed to conduct a healthy civilized life. It would be much more instructive than the design exhibits aimed at informing shoppers about fashionable "design" objects.
My choice for the location of a design repository would be something like Piz Gloria, the mountain-top restaurant at Murren, Switzerland.
I would choose it for its height above sea level, geological stability and the likelihood the Swiss will be in good shape even when the rest of the world is in chaos.
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