Changes affecting the whole planet require a global vision of cooperation, justice and responsibility. Can humanity design such a world?
On a rapidly warming planet, the old dream of the ‘designer climate’ takes on new meaning. What if we could remove excess CO2 from the air? What if we could dim the sun’s radiation?
Mad scientists, space lasers, mysterious satellites… our imagination is often more powerful than technological reality.
The Second World War was followed by a period of tension between the two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Weather and climate also became entangled in this ‘Cold War’. According to some researchers, human control over the atmosphere was within reach.
From 1850, newly discovered evidence of a prehistoric ice age in Europe led to a widespread debate about the potential causes of climate change. These discussions reinforced the idea that human activities could change the climate. A rock-solid belief in the power of technological progress became widespread.
People and their environments have been influencing each other for thousands of years. To this day, specific designs and products are used to ‘tame’ nature and make it profitable.
For a long time, the effects of human actions on nature were mainly observed on a local scale. From the 20th century onwards, the image of climate as a global and complex system gained immense influence – partly thanks to increased globalisation and the emergence of modern climate science.
Dance has become a billion-dollar industry, with major entertainment companies calling the shots. Massive dance festivals are held all over the world, featuring an international elite of DJs flying from party to party.
In the Netherlands, in the 1990s, gabber emerged in Rotterdam as a new branch of electronic dance music, joining styles such as house and techno that were already well-known in Europe.
The devices with which electronic music was initially created occupied entire rooms. Now software gradually displaced hardware until, eventually, one laptop could house all synthesizers and drum machines ever released.
Liberation is ingrained in electronic dance music. It’s crafted to make you dance freely. Drums and rhythm have always been the ritual tools of dance, and that remains true in our time, albeit now generated through electricity.
The appearance of sex toys tells us a lot about how people felt about lust and gratification at a particular time. About the taboos that might still attach to them. And about the future of sex and the ideals of designers.
Your first kiss. You never forget it. No matter how sweet, sloppy or bad it was. After that, there’s no stopping you: on average you’ll spend 20,000 minutes of your life kissing.
Not happy with your body? Then do something about it. That seems to be the credo of our age, with its obsession with perfect bodies. But is the body really so perfectible?
The contents of Bouquet romantic novels might still leave something to the imagination, but not so their covers: this is the image of the ‘ideal man’. What does it say about our perceptions?
Seven Nights with the Sheikh, A Kiss in the Moonlight, An Heir for the King: the titles of romantic fiction in the world-famous Bouquet series have always appealed to the imagination. Guilty pleasures full of desire, temptation and happy endings are still extremely popular.
Butterflies in your stomach, unable to eat a thing, constantly daydreaming and checking your phone every five minutes to see if you’ve received a new message: falling in love is magical.
For centuries being a mum or dad was not a choice at all, simply how things were ‘supposed to be’. The way parenthood itself is viewed has also changed over the years.
Only three things are truly important in a marriage: you, your beloved and your love for each other. All the same, there are a lot more factors at play in the background.
In addition to their biological family, many people have one they’ve chosen for themselves: people you’re not related to, people who understand, help and love you.
See them whizzing across the city on their fast bikes: his a men’s model, hers a woman’s. Both wrapped in a puffer jacket and with matching trainers. The dreary ‘ANWB couple’ in trendy jackets.
We’ve all grown up with stories and clichés that have unconsciously influenced our image of love. Love, designed explores these stereotypes and shows how design guides the way we both seek and ‘consume’ love.
Much has been and continues to be written about streamlining, the design style as well as the scientific phenomenon. A selection of historical books by curator Tomas van den Heuvel.
Modern advertising presents us with ideas about gender and shaving that are mostly western and binary.
Today’s sports shoes are designed to keep improving your performance, which goes hand in hand with technical innovations and science.
Although your skull provides natural protection for your brain, the cranium cannot withstand a hard impact caused by an accident or a bullet.
As we travel, we are cut off from the world around us and often move so fast that we cannot even see who is driving next to us.
A dot, an arrow or a pin on a map on your smartphone: these are what you use nowadays to indicate where your body is located. But does anyone still remember the phone box?
Design crosses the threshold of our bodies more often than you might think.
In other countries, the bike tended to be associated after the turn of the century with the working class. Queen Wilhelmina’s penchant for cycling meant that in the Netherlands, by contrast, bikes continued to be used by all levels of society. They have been seen as ‘typically Dutch’ ever since.
Rings are worn directly on the skin, but they are also visible to everyone. They make it easy to display your affinity with another person or a particular group.
For many of us, eating with a knife, fork and spoon is entirely natural.
We dig, plant, rake and water the garden, and then leave it to grow. The watering can has become a typical and familiar design in this regard.
The rules determine not only the game in general, but also how the player is permitted to move the ball around the pitch.
Curvy bottom and hips, wasp waist or gym-honed figure: the image of the ideal body has changed a lot over the centuries. Underwear helps people get as close as possible to that perfect image.
Solar cars need to be as efficient as possible and are therefore completely streamlined. In this video, Luc Evertzen of Solar Team Twente tells you more about the importance of streamlining solar cars.
Cyclist Ellen van Dijk is a seven-time world champion and set the world hour record in 2022. In this video, she elaborates on why streamlining is important to her.
In search of the ideal streamline, people often look to nature. But what are we actually talking about when we talk about streamlined animals?
What is a streamline? And what is aerodynamic resistance or ‘drag’?
Aerodynamics or hydrodynamics are crucial to speed sports like swimming, cycling, skating, bobsledding and skiing.
Many early experiments set out to compare forms in order to identify the perfect one.
For hundreds of years, a galloping horse was viewed as the epitome of speed. But this would change in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. New inventions like the train, the car and the aeroplane meant that speeds that once seemed fantastical were becoming increasingly possible. This new potential for progress had a huge…
The term “streamline” originates from science and engineering, but what is it?
The works shown in the part ‘Better Bodies’ of the exhibition share a fundamental belief in the human body. The body is extended, embellished, defended or armed, ready to face the future.
