Starting this summer, the Cité du design is hosting an off-site
exhibition of the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain
de Saint-Étienne Métropole. Its theme is the home and it offers an immersion into lifestyles and practices from the 1930s to the present day.
While the MAMC+ is undergoing renovation work, it is taking up
residence in La Platine at the Cité du design for an exhibition
devoted to its design collection. Enter an imaginary home with
its selection of almost 150 timeless objects.
The house consists of six rooms: a living room, kitchen, study, games room, bedroom and bathroom. Each one features furniture, equipment and accessories, some anonymous, some signed by
designers, covering a century of design history. Some will be
familiar, some less so, but they have been picked out for their
aesthetic, technical or sociological interest. From food processors for grinding, mixing, chopping and cooking food to razors, shavers and hair driers for taming hair, and taking everything from alarm clocks, toys and radios to Minitels, the exhibition reveals how the shapes, colours and sounds of everyday objects have developed.
The pared down scenography designed by the team at Muséotrope is structured like the frame of a house, allowing us to see into each room where people could have lived their lives. It emphasises the materiality of the objects and offers a chance to understand their technical development and imagine how they would have been used, whilst stimulating the visitor’s creativity.
The MAMC+ and the Cité du design are also putting on a
programme of events linked to the exhibition: film screenings, talks, workshops, guided tours. These offer an opportunity to approach the object, its context, its singular features and its familiarity from
a different angle and under an original light.
