Design Museum Time Capsule

It’s official: the building of the new Design Museum has finally started. Only one day before the kick-off of London Design Week, on the 18th of September, the ground breaking ceremony has been held at the former Commonwealth Institute on Kensigton High Street – what will become the Design Museum’s new home. The building operations could not start, though, before a symbolic gesture aimed at conserving the memory of the past: some of the world’s best designers picked their favourite objects, or those whose design they felt to be most representative of their times, and buried them in a time capsule. The group included Zaha Hadid, Paul Smith, Norman Foster and Cecil Balmond, as well as Sir Terence Conran and John Pawson. The results of their choice were extremely eclectic, featuring, amongst the other things, an Iphone, a cylindric teapot, Maps of the Tube, an image of Battersea Power Station, a lightbulb, a bottle of burgundy and a Euro coin. Leaving its location close to Tower Bridge behind, the Design Museum will join the other institutions in the cultural district of South Kensigton in 2015, and who knows when the prodigious time capsule hiding under its foundations will be finally opened…

Here is the full list of partecipants and their choices:

Cecil Balmond
European Union Flag
One Euro Coin
2p Stamp
USB containing images of jazz and blues music album covers, including John Coltrane and Bing Crosby

Sir Paul Smith
Isle of Man, London 2012 Olympic Games Stamps designed by Paul Smith

Sir Terence Conran
iPhone 4S
Tin of Anchovies
A good bottle of 2012 Burgundy

Deyan Sudjic
London 2012 Olympic Torch designed by BarberOsgerby
Badoiiing game, 2012 winner of the museum’s Design Ventura competition for 13-16 year-old D&T students

Margaret Howell
Image of Battersea Power Station

Zaha Hadid
Model of the MAXXI museum in Rome
Book by Patrik Schumacher, The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Vol.1: A New Framework for Architecture

John Pawson
1949 Wish Bone Chair (miniature model) for Hans J. Wegner for Carl Hansen and Son

Kenneth Grange
Cylinder Line Coffee Pot designed by Arne Jacobsen

Marc Newson
Mini Lockheed Lounge

Thomas Heatherwick  with Ingo Maurer
Standard light bulb

The Mayor for London
Artists Tube Maps

Words by Chiara Rimella