Past Exhibitions
An overview of exhibitions at the Design Museum since 1989.
Changing Spaces: 60 Years of Design with Habitat – Free Display
Design Ventura 2023–2024 – Free Display
Design Researchers in Residence: Solar Display
Enzo Mari Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist with Francesca Giacomelli
Future Observatory – Free Display
Momentum: A Design Narrative by Istituto Marangoni London
Ai Weiwei: Making Sense
Antifurniture
Design Ventura 22/23 – Free Display
Designing for our Future Selves – Free Display
Design Researchers in Residence: Islands – Free Display
Email is D̶e̶a̶d̶ – Free Display
How to Build a Low-Carbon Home – Free Display
REBEL: 30 Years of London Fashion
Saw This Made This – Free Display
SKATEBOARD
The Offbeat Sari
The Ralph Saltzman Prize 2023 – Free Display
WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD: The World of ASMR
Yinka Ilori: PARABLES FOR HAPPINESS – Free Display
Bethany Williams: Alternative Systems – Free Display
Design Researchers in Residence: Restore – Free Display
Design Ventura – Free Display
Football: Designing the Beautiful Game
Fred Perry: A British Icon – Free Display
Homage to Carnival – Free Display
Objects of Desire: Surrealism and Design 1924 – Today
The Art of Movement, Van Cleef & Arpels – Free Display
The Conran Effect – Free Display
The Future of Ageing – Free Display
The Oak Collection – Free Display
The Ralph Saltzman Prize 2022 – Free Display
Ai-Da: Portrait of the Robot - Free Display
Amy: Beyond the Stage
Aurora - Free Display
Autonomous Morris - Free Display
Charlotte Perriand: The Modern Life
Design Ventura 2020 - Free Display
Designers in Residence 2020: Care - Online Showcase
Discovered: Designers for Tomorrow – Free Display
Margaret Calvert: Woman at Work - Free Display
redeZIGN for Circularity – Free Display
Supermarket: Creativity is Essential – Free Display
Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street
The Power of Material: From Virtual to Physical – Free Display
Waste Age: What can design do?
Beazley Designs of the Year 2020
Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers
David Adjaye: Making Memory
Designers in Residence 2018: Dwelling
Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition
Moving to Mars
Beazley Designs of the Year 2019
Designers in Residence 2017/18
Ferrari: Under the Skin
Loewe Craft Prize 2018
Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008 –18
Azzedine Alaïa: The Couturier
Beazley Designs of the Year
Home Futures
California: Designing Freedom
Breathing Colour by Hella Jongerius
Cartier in Motion
Imagine Moscow
AXA PPP Health Tech & You - 2017
NEW OLD
Beazley Designs of the Year
Beazley Designs of the Year
Fear and Love
Designers in Residence 2016
Collection Lab
AXA PPP Health Tech & You
Designs of the Year
Life on Foot: Camper at the Design Museum
The Arrangement of Furniture in a Museum: SCP
Like Me: Our Bond with Brands
50 Years of British Road Signs
Designers in Residence
Cycle Revolution
In the Making
Designs of the Year
Time Machines: Daniel Weil and the Art of Design
John Lewis: How We Live Today
Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture
Designers in Residence
Women Fashion Power
Design Museum Collection: Extraordinary Stories about Ordinary Things
Designs of the Year
United Micro Kingdoms: A Design Fiction
The Future is Here: A New Industrial Revolution
Designers in Residence
Hello, My Name is Paul Smith
Designs of the Year
Christian Louboutin: 20 Years
Designed to Win
Designers in Residence
Digital Crystal: Swarovski at the Design Museum
Unexpected Pleasures: The Art and Design of Contemporary Jewellery
Brit Insurance Designs of the Year
Kenneth Grange: Making Britain Modern
Terence Conran: The Way We Live Now
Designers in Residence
This is Design
Brit Insurance Designs of the Year
Anni Albers: Truth to Materials
Sustainable Futures
Urban Africa: David Adjaye’s Photographic Survey
Basso & Brooke
John Pawson: Plain Space
Drawing Fashion: 100 Years of Fashion Illustrated
Wim Crouwel
Pottery Goes Pop: Portmeirion Pottery 1964-69
Hussein Chalayan: From Fashion and Back
Brit Insurance Designs of the Year
Super Contemporary
Jan Kaplicky: Architect of the Future
Mariscal: Drawing Life
Designers in Residence
David Chipperfield Architects: Form Matters
Otl Aicher
Ergonomics: Real Design
Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams
Brit Insurance Designs of the Year
La Maison Tropicale at Tate Modern
Model T Ford
Richard Rogers + Architects: From the House to the City
Industrial Facility: Some Recent Projects
Tim Walker: Pictures
Design Cities
Designers in Residence
Patricia Urquiola: Purely Porcelain
Alan Aldridge
Fredrikson Stallard
Luis Eslava
Great Brits: Ingenious Therapies
Luigi Colani: Translating Nature
Martino Gamper
Ettore Sottsass: Work in Progress
Ben Wilson: Fixed
Zaha Hadid: Architecture and Design
Jonathan Barnbrook: Friendly Fire
50 Years of Helvetica
Designers in Residence
Matthew Williamson: 10 Years in Fashion
JCB Dieselmax
Jean Prouvé: The Poetics of the Technical Object
Vitra Edition: Design Laboratory
Designer of the Year
Football Fever: World Cup Celebration
Formula One
Design Mart
Stuart Haygarth
Maarten Baas
Alan Fletcher: Fifty Years of Graphic Work (and Play)
Designing Daily Life
Khashayar Naimanan
Swiss Books
Christopher Labrooy
You Are Here: The Design of Information
A Barcelona Bathroom: Jaime Hayon
The Stacking Chair
The European Design Show
Cedric Price: Doubt, Delight and Change
Inside the Bay: Shaping a Surfboard
Shape and Shapers
Eileen Gray
Design Mart
Robert Brownjohn
Designing Modern Britain
Conran Foundation Collection: Thomas Heatherwick
Styrenissimo: Paul Cocksedge
Archigram
Designer of the Year
Plant Power: Ronan + Erwan Bouroullec
A Century of Chairs
Saul Bass
Zest for Life: Fernando and Humberto Campana
The E-Type Jaguar: Story of a British Sports Car
Constance Spry
Design Mart
Joris Laarman: The New Baroque
Designing Modern Life
Marc Newson
Under a Tenner: What is Good Design?
The MARS Group
Klein Dytham
Manolo Blahnik
A Century of Chairs
Designer of the Year
Superstudio: Life Without Objects
The Peter Saville Show
Living in a Tank: Working
Tord Boontje: Wild Silk
Hella Jongerius
Sam Buxton
When Flaminio Drove to France: Flaminio Bertoni’s Designs for Citröen
Somewhere Totally Else: The European Design Show
Abram Games
History of Modern Design: In the Home
The One-Legged Milk Stool
Alison + Peter Smithson: House of Tomorrow to a House for Today
Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka: The Glass Aquarium
Arne Jacobsen: Cocktails With Arne
Gio Ponti: A World
Paul Smith’s Robots
Rainer & Martino’s World Cup
Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka: The Glass Menagerie
Design Now: Graphics
Ford Thunderbirds
When Philip Met Isabella: Philip Treacy’s Hats for Isabella Blow
The Digital Aquarium
A Century of Chairs
Jerszy Seymour
The Adventures of Aluminium: From Jewellery to Jets
Unseen Vogue
Living in a Tank: Sleeping
Christophe Seyferth
Conran Foundation Collection: Droog
What About Design?
Minor Works: Designing for Children
Luis Barragán
Communicating Design
Isamu Noguchi
Memphis Remembered
A World Without Words: Jasper Morrison
Aston Martin
Dirty Washing
Conran Foundation Collection: Marc Newson
Web Wizards: Designers Who Define the Web
Living in the City
Movement: Peter Opsvik
Bauhaus Dessau
Under a Fiver
Kind Of Blue
Dr Martens
Zoeftig
Marc Newson’s Ford 021C
Buckminster Fuller: Your Private Sky
Six Moments
New Design and Technology
Waves
Equilibrium
Pierre Cardin: Sculptures Utilitaires
Conran Foundation Collection: Tyler Brûlé
Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Recent Works
Design Against Crime
Modern Britain 1929–1939
Mini: 40 Years of a Design Icon
Verner Panton: Light and Colour
The Appeal Of Reason
On The Road: The Art of Engineering in the Car Age
Rado
Design Now: Austria
Design: Process, Progress, Practice
Ferdinand Porsche: Design Dynasty
Innovation by Design –: 100 Years of Bosch in the UK
The Real David Mellor
The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention
Conran Foundation Collection: David Constantine
The Power of Erotic Design
The Coca-Cola Bottle
Conran Foundation Collection: Dan Pearson
Bike: Cycles, a tour of bicycle design 1825–2000
100 Masterpieces: The Furniture that made the Twentieth Century
Fabergé
Charlotte Perriand: Modernist Pioneer
Doing a Dyson
Conran Foundation Collection: Janice Kirkpatrick
It’s 100% Man-Made
Conran Foundation Collection: Jasper Morrison Work/Shop
Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago: The Early Years
Paul Smith: True Brit
Alessi: Family Follows Fiction Showcase
60/90: The Inheritance of the Sixties
Thinkteck! Tokyo Design Network/Design Museum Research Project
Paper Money
Designing Messages: European Stamp Design
Conran Foundation Collection: Alice Rawsthorn
CFA Voysey: Heart and Home
Detached Dreams: Ideal Homes
The MuZ Motorbike: Developing a New Product
RSA Student Design Awards
Conran Foundation Collection: Ross Lovegrove
Tokyo Design Network Showcase
Grafica Utile: Italian Posters of Social Information, Protest and Celebration 1975–1993
50 Years of Poster Design: G & B Arts
Designed in One, Made in the Other: New Products of Collaboration between Britain and Japan
Arne Jacobsen
It’s Plastic!
Malcolm Garrett: Ulterior Motifs
The 2nd Moulinex Generation Student Competition
Type and Image
Scandinavian Design in Britain
More Mileage: Car Design for Elderly and Disabled People
Cinquecento! 60 Years of City-Car Design
OMK: The Designs of Rodney Kinsman
Frank Gehry: New Bentwood Furniture
Is Starck a Designer?
Eileen Gray
Base over Apex: The Decline of the British Motorcycle
Scandinavian Festival: New Directions in Scandinavian Design
Alfa Romeo: Sport through Design
Raymond Loewy: Pioneer of American Industrial Design
Designing Yourself? Creativity in Everyday Life
Metropolis: Tokyo Design Visions
Chinese Graphic Design
FHK Henrion 1914–1990
New Japanese Graphics
The Material World of Tintin
Citroën DS
Organic Design
Eye Spy: Sub-Miniature Cameras
Sport 90: Design and Sport
Devětsil: Czech Avant-Garde Art, Architecture and Design of the 1920s and 30s
Graphic Design in America: A Visual Language History
Design in the Public Service: The Dutch PTT 1920-1990
Contemporary Spanish Graphic Design
Mario Sironi: Advertising Graphics
Abram Games: 60 Years of Design
Hans Schleger
Commerce and Culture
French Design
The Best of British Graphics
10 Years of Eau
FIAT Posters
Corporate Identity
The Boilerhouse Project was the Design Museum’s first iteration, located in former boiler houses of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Established by the Conran Foundation in 1981, the project’s aim was to test and stimulate public interest in contemporary design. In the five years it was open the Boilerhouse Project held many lively, original and acclaimed exhibitions, including shows on the Italian avant-garde group Memphis, Issey Miyake, Dieter Rams and a case study of the development of the Ford Sierra.
Coke! Coca-Cola, 1886-1986: Designing a Mega-Brand
New Design for Old
14:24: British Youth Culture
The Good Design Guide: 100 Best Ever Products
Issey Miyake: Bodyworks
National Characteristics in Design
The Bag
The Car
Natural Design: The Search for Comfort and Efficiency
Handtools: The Culture of Manual Work
Design at Kingston
Robots
Post Modern Colour
Design: The Problem Comes First
Kenneth Grange at the Boilerhouse: An Exhibition of British Product Design
Images for Sale
Taste: An Exhibition about Values in Design
Philip Garner’s ‘Better Living’ Exhibition
Art + Industry: A Century of Design in the Products We Use
Sony Design
Royal Flush: A Celebration of 100 Years of the Water-closet
Design: Dieter Rams
The Car Programme: 52 Months to Job One, or how they designed the Ford Sierra
Memphis: Milano in London
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