Design museum

The last art class lesson. Some history and the design museum are the things that we have  seen.

            Ones in the cathedral, we have to take a look to the furnish into the St Bavo cathedral and identify with our card. First we organize in couples and then they give a card. In our card we can see a orange cat painting a drawing. In the drawing we could see a lake or a fish bowl. Maybe the cat was hungry or she/he has a wish and the cat want to focus the wish in the drawing. 

            One’s we take a look inside the cathedral,  we create a nice link, saying that in both places we can see different stories. The fish of the cats drawing it seems to be alive. The same happens with the cathedral drawings. For my point of view, they want to show that, although they are paintings they show stories, happenings..

 

            I like this activity to make it with the children in the school. They develop their creativity in a funny way. Depending on the children age, maybe  some variations can be needed; you can give them different  cards related with a theme that they  like… and instead of going to the cathedral do it in the museum, or in a park, forest, the street what can they see in the street… Furthermore, it is a nice idea to work in groups, so instead of making couples you can make fours and give two cards or you can give some clues to manage the exercise.

            Moreover, in the way from the cathedral to the museum I realize about different things. All the part of the Centrum of Ghent is design, they build a new Ghent with lot of things to see for the tourists. All the roofs are design in a vertical way. The teacher ask a question What can you see that is design here? The answer was all, just because everything is design in a certain way. Us a person also we are design.

Going on with the design museum, in my opinion it is a nice place to go. At the beginning it is strange because it is a combination of things that it is not easy to understand. We have to watch or observe  the museum and answer some questions. Here are some examples:

Find an object that it looks as if it was dancing. 

There are three innovative fan. They do not have blades but in the purpose is the same. The air is generate in a other way, maybe they become our future fans.

 

I spy with my little eye a flower. Draw that flower. 

 When I saw this object a tulip comes into my mind.

 Find an object in the museum that consist out of mainly your favourite colour. Does this colour look good on the item chosen?

Both blue and green are my favourite colours. I saw lot objects with those colours but the one that attract me most was the next lamp. The combination of colours,  with the lines and the light of the light bulb it makes something especial.

 In addition, the design museum was nice. Lot of different designs were there, vacuums, bicycles, home tools, chairs, lamps, paintings, vases...

I have to say that some designs were old fashioned for my point of view. This museum is a clear example of the evolution in the word of design. Different ways and different materials are expose there. Wood, wool and porcelain are getting older while metal and glass are the most common materials nowadays.

Anyway, if for us this trip was interesting for the pupils too.  That is the reason why I think that these type of museums give nice opportunity to work with children.  It is a pity that the objects that are expose there cannot be touch. Children love experimenting and exploring with new things. Nevertheless, it is not a big impediment. I was thinking of making like a game, in which the children must found objects giving them some clues. The exercise is similar with the one we did, but in this case focus on the smaller. For them it will be fun and it will have a nice experience.

 

Going on I would like to make a remark. In the museums the staff was controlling if we were touching the objects or not. I do not argue in this point, just because I think that there are lot of attractive objects offer for the public. Ones you are inside the museums and you see those objects with different shapes, textures and colours it is inevitable to touch and experiment by yourself. So someday if I have the opportunity of making my own museum it would be allow touching the objects. In my opinion it is a different way of interiorising things.

For those how are interested on art and design in the next web page there is more information about this museum. http://www.designmuseumgent.be/ENG/whats-new.php .

To end with the publication I would like you to compare this museum with the one that is in my town. We only have a museum “Ibarraundi museoa” in which depending the season different works or objects are exposed. One of my favourite exposition was about the old castle founding’s that the scientists did.  In the next photos you can see  the middle ages ``Aitzorrotz´´ castle how it was. Although the web page is in Basque there are more photos uploaded. http://zaharra.eskoriatza.net/ezagutu/atxorrotz

 To end with, I make the next chair design. It is very comfortable and not expensive, so the ones who are interested in the sketch let me know !