Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary will cover the practice’s history by examining projects ranging from the student works of Thomas Heatherwick – who founded the practice in 1994 – to more recent high-profile commissions that have won international acclaim for the practice.
Organised into conceptualised clusters, Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary offers an insight to the studio’s design processes through photographs, maquettes, prototypes, material fragments and models, with the clusters designed to create an impression of walking through the studio’s workshop and archives.
Each cluster will also feature film and audio recordings of Heatherwick himself discussing the processes and back-stories of the projects on display. Evident will be the variety of disciplines that he and his studio have been engaged in over the years, ranging from architecture, engineering, transport and urban planning to furniture, sculpture and product design.
To illustrate larger-scale projects, such as the 2007 project for East Beach Cafe in Littlehampton and the design for Longchamp fashion store in New York (2006), drawings, material fragments and maquettes will be presented. Test models, photographs and complete pieces will be on display for the smaller projects, such as the Bleigiessen installation for the Wellcome Trust (2005) and the Rolling Bridge in Paddington Basin, London (2004).
More recent projects, such as the UK Pavilion Seed Cathedral from the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and the new London double-decker bus will also be shown, the latter in full scale. All in all, more than 150 objects will be displayed in the exhibition, which has been curated by V&A’s curator of designs, Abraham Thomas, but designed by the Heatherwick studio itself.
Director of the V&A, professor Martin Roth, said of Heatherwick’s work: ‘He is an extremely exciting and forward-thinking contemporary designer whose work spans a fascinating breadth of disciplines. He is constantly challenging us with his ideas and pushing boundaries in art and design.’
The exhibition is part of V&A’s British Design Season as well as London 2012 Festival programme and accompanies V&A’s spring exhibition British Design 1948-2012. Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary is open from 31 May to 30 September.
vam.ac.uk
