The mission of the Museum of Design Atlanta is to showcase and encourage good design.
Such an institution fails right off the bat if it doesn’t practice what it preaches: A museum of design must itself be well designed.
Good news: MODA passes with flying colors (especially red). Be it architecture, graphics, urban values or sustainability, MODA quotes chapter and verse.
Kudos to Perkins+Will, the architecture firm that invited MODA to take a street-level space in its newly renovated Midtown headquarters, designed the museum, and gave the struggling institution a break on the rent. No longer hidden away in a downtown office building, it’s got a Peachtree address across from the High Museum, a welcoming plaza entry and a large storefront window to lure passers-by.
Bruce McEvoy, P+W associate principal and chair of MODA’s board, led the team that converted what was the street-level floor of the parking deck into an elegant envelope.
The plan is compact, but the effect is airy. A gracious lobby/function space leads to the central spine, a corridor gallery, which terminates in a dramatic double-height sunlit gallery. Patrons of the public library, which occupies one floor of the building, can look down into it. The offices lined up on the south side of the hall enjoy views to the street; an additional gallery is on the north.
Perkins+Will has made its offices a demonstration lab for urbanism and green initiatives. MODA is similarly water- and energy-efficient.
It’s also snazzy. The au courant gallery aesthetic -- concrete floors, white walls -- is enlivened with elements that play off MODA’s logo, a catchy composition of blocks in white and Marilyn-Monroe’s-lipstick red.
The museum’s mantra -- design is everywhere -- is evident in dynamic signage by Douglas Grimmett of Primal Screen, including the seven-minute loop of information and dramatic images that appears on a row of monitors set into the lobby wall, the Knoll furnishings and the spiffy T-shirts.
Even the outsized restroom faucets, which unlike many high-style fixtures don’t require an instruction manual to use, call attention to design -- and presage the upcoming “Water Dream: Experience the Bathroom Like Never Before.”
Coincidentally, red is the traditional color of Italian motorcycles, which comprise the inaugural exhibition. Organized by architect Joe Remling, managing director of the firm ai3, in conjunction with the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, it charts the evolution of the ever-more aerodynamic speed machines between 1957 and 2007.
If you like motorcycles, you will love this show. I don’t share your enthusiasm, but I did have a good time with the timeline in the hall gallery, a summation of the primacy of Italian design.
Remling worked with graphic design students at Georgia State University, who produced the video projections on the walls of the north gallery -- clever abstractions or montages based on vintage pictures, details of the bikes and such. Student Shivan Kapoor designed the show’s effective title graphic.
One suggestion: MODA needs more prominent exterior signage. Its lone indicator is obscured by the building’s curtain wall. Something in the front window or a sign on the plaza would help; right now the storefront display might suggest that it’s a cycle shop.
Catherine Fox is chief visual art critic of www.ArtsCriticATL.com
Architecture review
Museum of Design Atlanta. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays; until 8 p.m. Thursdays; noon-5 p.m. Sundays. $10; $8 seniors and military; $5 students; free for members. "Passione Italiana: Design of the Italian Motorcycle" through June 13. 1315 Peachtree St., Atlanta. 404-979-6455, www.museumofdesign.org.
Bottom line: A terrific design in a prominent location gives MODA new momentum.
