Opening 19 June 2021, the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) – the world's leading museum of art, design and performance based in London – presents  Design 1900 – Now, a new permanent gallery exploring how design shapes and is shaped by how we live, work, travel, communicate and consume. Housed within the museum’s former 20th Century Gallery, this newly curated space brings together leading design objects alongside the first redisplay of V&A’s celebrated "Rapid Response Collecting" programme since its founding in 2014. As part of the gallery, new acquisitions will go on display, including the ECAL Digital Market project by ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne.

“We are delighted to bring the ECAL Digital Market project into the V&As collection of digital and product design,” says Corinna Gardner, Senior Curator of Design and Digital at the V&A. “We have an established history of acquiring 3D printed designs and this project has the ability to speak to the future of this exciting discipline.”

In partnership with the 3D printing company Formlabs, the idea of this project is to present digital manufacturing as an industrial production tool thanks to a print farm composed of numerous machines printing the same pieces simultaneously. Imagined by Camille Blin, Head of the Master Product Design, and Christophe Guberan, ECAL tutor, ECAL Digital Market offers functional and well-designed everyday objects, created by Master Product Design students as well as by a selection of ECAL-related designers (faculty members and alumni). Digital files of the objects can also be purchased online: www.ecal-digital-market.ch

As part of the “Automation & Labour” thematic within the exhibition at the V&A, ECAL Digital Market was initially created for the Milan Design Week 2018. After its success in Italy, the project was presented at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, at CIBONE Tokyo and already at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. “We first brought this project to the V&A as part part of a London Design Festival display,” says Johanna Agerman Ross, Curator of Furniture and Product Design at the V&A. “It’s great to see the work of both early career and established designers now joining the collection and fitting that it’s now featured in the new Design 1900-Now gallery.”

For ECAL Director Alexis Georgacopoulos: “It is very rewarding for both teachers and students to see their work become part of such a prestigious museum collection. It confirms us in our choices and motivates us to push the boundaries even further.“

Victoria and Albert Museum
Cromwell Road
London, SW7 2RL
www.vam.ac.uk