Elegant Armor: The Art of Jewelry presents innovative pieces of contemporary art jewelry from our permanent collection, dating from the 1940s to the present. The works on display range from the subtle to the flamboyant, from the purely geometric to the organic, and from narrative to sculptural works that extend the limits of the human body. The exhibition presents the major themes, materials and techniques that make contemporary jewelry visually exciting and intellectually stimulating.

This exhibition at the Design Museum London is the first comprehensive presentation of Hussein Chalayan’s work in the UK. Spanning fifteen years of experimental projects, the exhibition explores Hussein Chalayan's creative approach, his inspirations and the many themes which influence his work such as cultural identity, displacement and migration.

In the design gallery Kunsthal Rotterdam presents the installation Icon Dressed by the Danish-Dutch artist Annette Meyer, a poetic recreation of fourteen silhouettes based on female fashion from the past two centuries.

Assembled by Design Forum Finland, an organization promoting Finnish design, Cool Dozen+ is an exhibition presenting the evolution of Finnish chair and textile design - its recent history, icons and the new ideas of young rising stars in the field. Cool Dozen+ displays the works of a total of 22 designers/designer teams. The fourteen pairs of chairs and fabrics include both classics and works by the most interesting names among contemporary designers. 

A stylish exhibition on tour from London's Victoria and Albert Museum, exploring the relationship between contemporary fashion and global sportswear brands over the last 20 years. Around 50 outfits and 120 objects are on display, including contemporary sportswear, streetwear, accessories and shoes.

When Isamu Noguchi was invited to represent the United States in the 1986 Venice Biennale, he juxtaposed stone sculpture with his Akari Light Sculptures to communicate his ideas on the reflexive relationship between the material he employed and his belief in the inner “essence” of sculpture.

Noguchi had been experimenting with the conventional Japanese lamp’s mulberry paper and bamboo construction for over three decades, adapting its form to express the contrast between permanence and the transitory, between the traditional and modern invention, and between fine and functional art.

Romantic ideas of chivalry and courtly magnificence from the Middle Ages have inspired the use of medieval silhouettes and details in modern fashion design, literature, architecture and art. Also known as Gothic style, medievalism blossomed in the mid-19th century as a sentimental response toward the societal challenges of rapid industrialization.

Daidō Moriyama is one of the most important and exciting Japanese photographers of our time, having made prolific, often experimental pictures of modern urban life since the 1960s. This exhibition showcases a group of approximately 45 photographs made in and around Tokyo in the 1980s, when Moriyama focused his mature aesthetic on the city with renewed intensity.

This exhibition will explore the varied new uses of felt—an ancient material, believed to be one of the earliest techniques for making textiles. Made by matting together wool fibers with humidity and friction, felting requires little technological expertise and is an extremely versatile material.

Lautner’s work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in the United States and abroad. His buildings have been featured in countless publications, in a documentary film on his life and work, in the James Bond and Diehard films, among others, and in commercials for television.

Dorothea Prühl is a leading exponent of the current art jewellery scene. Her aesthetic stance is informed by abstract impressions from nature, concentration on essentials, eminent sensitivity and sculptural power. She makes basic statements in gold and silver – but also in wood, aluminium, titanium and stainless steel – impressions manifest in generously proportioned, clear entities. Starting with what is there, she tracks it down to its inmost core, applying to its quintessence a new aesthetic idiom – it might be a flower, the wind, a house, birds in flight …

The “Cold war”, the iron curtain, the tensions between the “Atlantic alliance” and the countries within the Soviet bloc today seem like episodes from long ago, but in reality they were a major part of 20th-century history, from the post-war years of the 1970s onwards and, above all, they inspired and animated manifestations of artistic creation.

Material ConneXion, the leading global platform for material innovation and solutions, will celebrate the opening of its New York City headquarters with the first retrospective of work by seminal Americal designer Neal Small. Renowned for his pioneering use of materials such as Plexiglas and Lucite to create furniture, lighting, home accessories and even sculpture, Small's work is included in such prominent collections as The Museum of Modern Art, The Smithsonian Institution, and the Walker Art Center. Featuring several important loans from private collections, this retrospective presents a rare look at Small's most iconic designs from the '60's and '70's.

The Dutch graphic designer Irma Boom is one of the most well-known contemporary book designers. With the use of unfamiliar formats, materials, colors, structures, and typography she makes the book into a visual and haptic experience.

For IKEA, design is one the central factors that contribute to realising the idea of functional, well designed furniture that is affordable to most people. Among the concepts behind this is the notion of »Beauty for All« (Ellen Key 1899), which had its roots in the reform movements of the 19th century and the “Swedish Model” of a modern, open society oriented towards the family and social concerns.

León Ferrari (Argentine, b. 1920) and Mira Schendel (Brazilian, b. Switzerland, 1919–1988) are considered among the most significant artists working in Latin America during the second half of the twentieth century. Their works address language as a major visual subject matter.

Marcel Breuer: Design and Architecture is the first exhibition to treat all facets of Breuer's work with equal weight, from the highly innovative furniture he produced as both a student and teacher at the famed Bauhaus, to the elegant but modestly scaled houses he created after moving=to the United States, to the large-scale governmental and institutional buildings he eventually designed for major cities around the world. Developed by the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, the exhibition traces several themes that connect the apparently diverse elements of this prolific and influential designer’s portfolio. The RISD Museum is the exhibition's second North American venue and the only Northeastern stop. Twelve models — produced exclusively for this exhibition — will highlight Breuer's extensive architectural work from single-family houses to major religious, cultural, and civic institutions. In addition, drawings, floor plans, photographs, video projections, and interactive computer terminals will shed light on Breuer's long and varied architectural career.

Prisons. Courtrooms. The Department of Motor Vehicles waiting rooms. Telephone booths. Preschool classrooms. What do these places have in common?

According to Richard Ross, they all embody "asymmetrical architecture" – spaces that exert power over individuals. Architecture of Authority: Photographs by Richard Ross features 44 of Ross's large-format color photographs that capture the essence, and even the beauty, of these "powerful" spaces in sometimes surprising ways.

Death is omnipresent in the media and in our leisure distractions. Yet we avoid direct contact with those lifeless corpses which confront us with our own fragility. Our diversionary tactics vary: over-elaborate ritualisation or, on the contrary, an aseptic and depersonalised relationship. The funerary urn, an object made to preserve the deceased ashes and dissimulating them in a neutral container, belongs to these tactics. Its aesthetics are usually solemn if not morbid. How to remediate this?

Object Factory: The Art of Industrial Ceramics is the first major museum exhibition devoted to state-of-the-art industrial ceramic production and the industry's impact on craft, art, and design. Originally shown at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto, this international survey of contemporary ceramic products, designs, and art explores how artists and industrial designers are re-imagining the possibilities of ceramics in the 21st century.