Her Generous Spirit

To High Street Kensington tube station and then take the ten minute walk down to what used to be the Commonwealth Institute building but has now been completely gutted, renovated, refurbished, rebranded and reopened as the new venue for the Design Museum, which had formerly been languishing somewhere down in docklands, or thereabouts.  And I think it’s probably fair to say that when the Museum trustees were thinking of shifting westwards they were more interested in the centrality of their new location rather than the layout of the old building they’ve taken over, since the only part of the former structure that the architects have decided to keep is its famously iconic roof feature.  Now, I’m not sure how Pevsner would have described this curious – unique, I imagine – bit of construction, but in layman’s terms it’s a sort of interlocking set of concave curved elements that rise to a peak slightly reminiscent of a pirate’s tricorn hat.  Well, at least that’s how I remember the thing, although it’s many years since I last actually saw it and a couple of sets of chunky square apartment blocks have now been jammed down in front of the main building, making it hard to get a proper view of what the architects at some point presumably envisaged was going to be one of the defining features of their exciting new Museum project – which is rather a shame.

As I say, it’s been at least a couple of decades since I was last here and again my memory may be playing tricks but my recollection of the Commonwealth Institute was that it was a bit of a fusty place with the permanent displays consisting of a selection of rather tatty dioramas aimed at showing off selections of produce and clichéd cultural artefacts from among the various different nations of the Commonwealth:  a stuffed wallaby and a six-pack of Fosters for Australia; a moose’s head and an ice puck for Canada; a safety deposit box and some bundles of cash for various more exotic off-shore banking havens; and so forth.  And then there were the succession of worthy but dull temporary exhibitions centered around such arcane topics as a comprehensive history of the paisley shawl and the development of chair production in Botswana or somewhere equally remote.  Anyway, the story goes that sometime in the 1980s Mrs Thatcher got irritated by a series of less than flattering comments made about her generous spirit and compassionate good nature by some snarky head of state from one of the smaller member countries and, in a fit of pique, she just pulled the financial plug on its PR outpost and let the place sink.  Frankly, I’m not sure there were any great protests or outpouring of public grief at this brutal example of instituticide as I think most people already thought the place had somewhat passed its sell by date and become a bit of an irrelevance – especially as the country was about to so enthusiastically embrace the exciting new future represented by our growing involvement with that ever-expanding community of confreres among our close neighbours situated within the geographical boundaries of continental Europe.

As mentioned before, the building has now been revivified out of its long period of hibernation and is now all new, shiny and buffed up and, in its new manifestation as the Design Museum, is all ready to…well…er…at this point I have to pause because I’m not actually sure what the point of the place is and what exactly it’s meant to be doing.  What is its raison d’etre, its core function or, to use a bit of designer-speak, what is its unique selling point?  I never thought I’d write these words, but on entering the building what I could do with is an introductory welcoming mission statement of some sorts to tell me what I’m meant to be seeing, thinking and doing here.  Alas, as far as I can see there isn’t one – there’s a little folded guide map next to a plastic box suggesting a £2 donation but even on this expensive scrap of paper there’s no succinct expression of the Museum’s proposed function or purpose.  Hence, I’m feeling a little bit quizzical as I dutifully queue up for my ticket to get to see the opening exhibition Fear and Love.  Entry to the permanent collection is free but it’s a slightly extravagant £12 to get to see this inaugural temporary display, thankfully reduced to a more reasonable £6 on production of my Art Fund discount card.  As for the show, well, it consists of a dozen small installations created by various design groups, each of which has provided their own little explanatory wall panel notes that notably explain very little.  So, a sort of igloo made of lumps of felt, in which is projected scenes of huskies being walked across the tundra, appears to be a sort of quasi-sociological documentary introduction into the challenges facing members of the peripatetic Mongolian community as it evolves from a transient, nomadic lifestyle to one of a more settled nature.  While, a little further along the path, a large glass box houses a sort of computerised Robocop machine that twists, turns and extends an intimidating armature towards anyone who dares pass too close to its see-through cage.  Then there’s a long scroll of paper with glossy photographs of bread, rice, pasta and other assorted carbohydrates that keep the world fat, fit, fed or otherwise; a series of wobbly towers of recycled fabric materials, each separated out into their different rainbow of constituent colours; a video about the evolution of the Grindr match-making site; a bunch of fantasy death masks, hot from the extrusive nozzle of a hi-tech 3-D printer; and various other equally curious examples of…well, if you’ll excuse me ending my sentence with a preposition, I’m not really sure what they are examples of.  I suppose the displays are all sort of mildly interesting – it’s certainly fun teasing Robocop by pulling faces and running up and down in front of his confining box – but I’ve no idea what on earth the show as a whole is trying to suggest about design in particular or, for that matter, anything in general?  Of course, if all these things were in an art gallery then it wouldn’t really matter but I’ve a sort of a feeling that I’m meant to be engaging with a more deliberately didactic experience here and, if that is indeed the case, then I can’t help feeling that it hasn’t really been much of a success.

Which inevitably leads to the question of whether the fault lies with me or the Museum, a thought I ponder as I head up the stairs towards the permanent collection.  Pausing at the mezzanine level I get a better view of the whole building and realise that the layout seems to be trying to replicate the reverse-Tardis style favoured by those responsible for the design of Tate Modern.  By which I mean that a building that looks impressively spacious from the outside contains remarkably little actual gallery display space inside.  Both buildings have empty cavernous interiors and then various cafes, restaurants, administration offices, shops and the like stuck round the edges, with the actual display areas added on almost as an afterthought.  Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but with so much empty space to play with it does seem a bit ridiculous that the Museum’s permanent collection has had to be squeezed into such a comparatively small space.  It’s cramped and crowded and shuffling around bumping into people and exhibits while trying to read an excess of descriptive labels and wall panels is not, in my opinion, all that conducive to a carefully considered examination of what’s on display.  And, what is on display?  Well, lamps and laptops; bikes and wheelchairs; road signs and tube maps and a whole bunch of other bits and bobs, gee-jaws, do-dads and whatnots that make the whole experience a bit like barging around a department store on the day they’re having their annual discount, clear-out, summer sale.  Again, the stuff is all vaguely diverting but there’s not much of a wow factor and I don’t think there’s anything here in any of the cases or racks that I’ve not seen before sitting on the shelves of the smarter shops in the West End or indeed on the window-shopping walk to get here along Kensington High Street.

All of which suggests that maybe the purpose of the place is to act as a repository for various modern artefacts that a self-appointed, metropolitan elite, cognoscenti have determined to be examples of ‘good’ design.  And that the point of putting them on display is to give hints to the less sophisticated members of society as to the manner in which they should be aspiring to decorate their homes, entertain themselves and so generally live their lives in a state of more elevated enlightenment and grace.  Of course, it’s wonderful that there are guardians of good taste out there who are willing to generously give up time within their busy schedules to help direct the rest of us to consider that when we are about to acquire our next set of trinkets, chattels or other consumer durables we shouldn’t just succumb to our normal base instincts and get the gaudiest or cheapest stuff that’s being promoted but consider other aspects like the elegance of the finish, the smoothness of the touch, the quality of its constituent materials, the…the…  In short, next time you need a cushion or a cruet set, a mug or a mousemat, some shoes or ships or sealing wax, don’t just go down to the nearest Poundland and grab the first thing you see.  Have a flick through Country Life or Wired Magazine and check what the old toffs or young trendies are using and then wander around Heal’s or the Alessi shop and buy the best you can afford, or else shoplift the biggest you think you can get away with.  Which, if you’re a subscriber to this blog, I’m sure you do already without needing prompts from me or any museum, however well designed, or otherwise.