Past Exhibitions

An overview of exhibitions at the Design Museum since 1989.

2023

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
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

2022

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

2021

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
Waste Age: What can design do?

2020

Beazley Designs of the Year 2020
Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers

2019

David Adjaye: Making Memory
Designers in Residence 2018: Dwelling
Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition
Moving to Mars
Beazley Designs of the Year 2019

2018

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

2017

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

2016

Beazley Designs of the Year
Fear and Love
Designers in Residence 2016

2015

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

2014

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

2013

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

2012

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

2011

Brit Insurance Designs of the Year

Kenneth Grange: Making Britain Modern

Terence Conran: The Way We Live Now

Designers in Residence

This is Design

2010

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

2009

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

2008

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

2007

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

2006

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

2005

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

2004

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?

2003

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

2002

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

2001

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

2000

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

1999

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

1998

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

1997

The Power of Erotic Design

The Coca-Cola Bottle

Conran Foundation Collection: Dan Pearson

Bike: Cycles, a tour of bicycle design 1825–2000

1996

100 Masterpieces: The Furniture that made the Twentieth Century

Fabergé

Charlotte Perriand: Modernist Pioneer

Doing a Dyson

Conran Foundation Collection: Janice Kirkpatrick

1995

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

1994

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!

1993

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?

1992

Eileen Gray

Base over Apex: The Decline of the British Motorcycle

Scandinavian Festival: New Directions in Scandinavian Design

1991

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

1990

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

1989

Commerce and Culture

French Design

The Best of British Graphics

10 Years of Eau

FIAT Posters

Corporate Identity

Boilerhouse Project Exhibitions

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.

1986

Coke! Coca-Cola, 1886-1986: Designing a Mega-Brand

New Design for Old

14:24: British Youth Culture

1985

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

1984

Handtools: The Culture of Manual Work

Design at Kingston

Robots

Post Modern Colour

1983

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

1982

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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Exhibitions

Design is a continually evolving subject: visit the museum to be inspired and informed by the exhibitions. Find out more about current and upcoming exhibitions at the Design Museum and buy your tickets in advance.