This exhibition was held in the V&A.  It displayed objects such as, Salvador Dali and Edward James: Lobster Telephone, 1938 and Elsa Schiaparelli: ‘Skeleton’ evening dress, 1938. 

This exhibition was a really good opportunity to see a large collection of surreal art.               

http://www.vam.ac.uk/

I went to the V&A to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition.  The exhibition showed some of his sketches and some of his designs and inventions.   

Some of the sketches displayed were of drawings of the human heart, rules of proportion and architecture.  With the sketches you could also see the notes he made with his backward handwriting.                

Above the sketches were animations of his drawings and some of his inventions.  They showed his drawings in 3D and how some of his inventions would work and informed some of the things we see today such as the helicopter.

The exhibition was a good opportunity to see Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings and how detailed they are, how important they were and how they have influenced how we are today.  The animations were affective and brought his drawings to life and gave the chance to see how his inventions would work.  However, the size of the exhibition was disappointing; it would have been nice to see more.  There were few drawings and sketches and the animations felt like they were done to bulk up the exhibition.

www.vam.ac.uk

The form/ design centre is housed in the HedmanskaGarden – “Hedman Court” which was a large brick warehouse.  It displays the current and best Swedish Scandinavian design.  It has more than 20 exhibitions a year ranging from architecture to crafts.  The centre has permanent exhibitions from some of the best companies within Swedish furniture, textiles, lighting, and arts and crafts. 

One of the items displayed that I found of interest was called “Like a letter in the post”.  This was a bowl made out of thin metal found in the rural areas of Sweden.  The bowl could be folded up flat and sent in the post.  It can then be unfolded when lightly pressed creating a pattern but has the function of a bowl.  However, the bowl required a complicated mathematical equation to produce the results displayed! 

 Like a letter in the post

The whole exhibition was worth seeing.  Throughout the whole building was high quality design which informs the viewers of the high standards expected from designers.  The old character of the building also provides a unique stage juxtaposed with the modern era of design.

www.formdesigncentre.com

Whilst in Copenhagen I went to the Design Museum.  One of the main features was a display which had a supermarket layout but the products on sale were things bottled up such as pause, inner calmness, obesity dissolvers etc. 

Overall the museum was disappointing.  The objects were poorly displayed and the layout was bad.  I don’t think the museum showed the best designs and I didn’t find visiting it that useful. 

The museum sits on the river front in Copenhagen.  I went to an exhibition in the museum which showed some of the design for the Beijing 2008 Olympics and had the quote “From Made in China to Made by China”. 

The exhibition also showed the percentage of the world’s population that lives in China.  It also showed how the population is getting wealthier and that the Chinese are now looking to go abroad for holidays and that the western population should now make china their main market because there is a lot of money to be made from them.  The exhibition also showed the knock on effect of the changes such as pollution.