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Kenneth Grange / Design Museum London
Anyone even remotely interested in design knows Jasper Morrison. Tom Dixon. Zaha Hadid. Philippe Starck. But as talented as they all are, they are celebrities before they are designers. Rockstars. That’s why everyone knows them – not because they’ve managed to transform the world. (Check out Design Observer’s fantastic article “The Poverty of Starchitecture” for some interesting perspective.) Kenneth Grange, on the other hand, has worked for decades in relative obscurity yet has probably impacted lives more profoundly than any other designer of his generation (especially if you find yourself in Grange’s home country of the UK).
It’s easy to take for granted that everything in our built environment was designed. Everything from the Jonathan Ives-designed computer you’re probably reading this on down to more institutional things such as the sturdy benches lining your local park. Those things, like the park bench, which hide in plain sight are arguably the most important designed objects that make up our built environment. Endlessly more than the conceptual, witty, exquisite “design” trinkets we all-too-often think of as design, these things actually have shaped our lives.
This month, Design Museum London is at long last opening an exhibition on Grange and his long career’s work. And while he doesn’t necessarily have a signature style, his chunky, function-above-all ethic shines through in all of his enduring work. He was the designer of Kodak’s seminal Instamatic cameras, the iconic London Taxi, the Intercity 125 train, and several household appliances like irons and mixers that every British household once (and sometimes still) uses, as well as postboxes, park benches (!), computer monitors and others. He even designed the UK’s first parking metres (which must be why he never reached star status…). Oh yeah, and he co-founded the Holy Grail of design firms, Pentagram.
Opening July 20th at Design Museum London, and running through October 30th. Not to be missed!
Tag Christof – Images courtesy Sprungseven & Olivier Goupil
