Gallery of Modern Design. Photo courtesy of the ROM.
The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) opened its new Gallery of Modern Design last month. Featuring the iconic work of designers including Frank Lloyd Wright and Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann among others, the gallery traces the development of design in Europe and North America, highlighting six design movements from 1910 to 1965.
On display are many objects from the ROM’s Bernard and Sylvia Ostry collection including furniture, glassware, ceramics, silver, and other metalwork, prized for their beauty, rarity, and cultural significance. Other objects are publicly displayed for the first time.
Side Chair by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Photo courtesy of the ROM.
The gallery?s first section features French Art Deco designers including Jules Leleu and Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann whose finely crafted works demonstrate the movement?s full range of luxurious surface finishes. Section two showcases North American designers who expanded on French Art Deco to include streamlined and skyscraper design elements. Their style, Streamlined Modern or Modernist, is represented by works of Paul Frankl, Gilbert Rohde, and Norman Bel Geddes. Celebrated architect-designer Frank Lloyd Wright is also given prominence in this section. Section Three examines Germany?s influential Bauhaus School established in 1919 and the move by architects and designers to produce practical household goods that could be mass-manufactured for working-class consumers. Highlig...