Interface

The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences showcases its design and technology collection through the exhibition “Interface: people, machines, design” at the Powerhouse Museum.

interface
Featuring iconic products designed and manufactured by the world’s famous brands, including Olivetti, Braun and Apple, “Interface” explores how a handful of companies, designers and industrial visionaries transformed clunky machines of a century ago and created the ubercool, must-have items that we can’t live without today.
The Museum’s collection contains many technological items that are beautiful and elegant yet their designers remain anonymous to this day. By contrast, contemporary designers, such as Apple’s present design chief, English-born Jonathan Ive, are invested with cult status. “Interface” plays homage to designers past and present and explores their philosophies and inspirations. The exhibition also reveals how many design methods from 50 years ago have stood the test of time and remain influential in object design today.
interface
Top: the Blickensderfer 6 portable typewriter. Designed by George Canfield Blickendsderfer, USA, 1906. Photo: Powerhouse Museum. Above: ICO MP1 (Modello Portatile 1) Typewriter. Designed by Aldo Magnelli and Riccardo Levi, made by Olivetti, Italy, 1932. Photo: Powerhouse Museum.
Design visionaries whose work is explored in the exhibition include: Dieter Rams, the German industrial designer who was Braun’s design visionary; Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak co-founders of Apple; Doug Engelbart a seminal figure of computer interface design; Olivetti designers Marcello Nizzoli, Ettore Sottsass and Mario Bellini; the early Apple designs from Hartmut Esslinger who helped shape Apple’s transformation into a global brand and current designer Jonathan Ive.
Highlight objects include coveted pieces from 20th century – a rare Apple I computer, one of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak’s Blue Box phones from the early 1970s, and a Xerox Alto computer that Steve Jobs saw working in the xerox labs in the late 1970s which transformed his and Apple's vision of how people could use computers in the future.
Interface
The Olivetti Valentine typewriter, designed by Ettore Sottsass and Perry King, made by Olivetti, Italy, 1969. Photo: Powerhouse Museum.

Along the way you can see examples of some of the finest typewriters, radios, telephones and computers that explored the use of new materials, new technologies and new manufacturing techniques that demonstrate the continuity of design methods employed by the greatest designers, up to the present day digital media players, smart phones and tablets.

“Interface” also reflects on the relationship between art and design: from the Italian futurists to geometric abstraction (inspiring the Ico typewriter) to pop art (inspiring the Valentine typewriter), to functionalism and modernism, designers and artists shared ideals and explored new forms.

Interface
‘Bauhaus’ Telephone. Designed by Marcel Breuer and Richard Schadewell, made by Fuld & Co / Telephonbau & Normazeit GmbH, Germany, 1928. Photo: Powerhouse Museum.

until October 11, 2014
Interface: people, machines, design
Powerhouse Museum
500 Harris Street, Ultimo (Sidney)

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