NEW YORK - Glowing armchairs and virtual cherry blossoms. A "wave garden" to tap ocean energy. A planter made from a discarded tire. High-fashion gowns, low-budget housing and the world's first implantable artificial heart.
From whimsical to ingenuous and the utterly practical, "Inside Design Now" at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum recognizes some of America's most creative people in architecture, fashion, home decor, new media, transportation, science and other fields.
The 300 objects and installations by 80 firms and individuals were commissioned or loaned for the triennial show, which opened in April and lasts through Jan. 25, 2004.
Featuring "new ideas and future horizons," it's the only exhibition of its kind in the nation, the Smithsonian says.
There are Isaac Mizrahi for costumes, Isabel Toledo in high fashion, architects Peter Eisenman and Stanley Saitowitz, graphic artist Maira Kalman, author-publisher Dave Eggers, stage designers Alexandre de Betak and David Wasco and furniture builder Gaetano Pesce, along with dozens of emerging stars.
Unlike typical design exhibits or trade shows, the Smithsonian's installations aren't presented in rigid thematic groups, such as home decor in one section or apparel in another. Instead, the design fields are mixed to evoke a "collage of artifacts and images" that reflect entrepreneurial ambitions as well as overlapping ideas and conceptual aims.
Visitors take a stroll through contemporary design on two floors of the museum housed in Andrew Carnegie's 1902 mansion on Upper Fifth Avenue.
Cutting-edge furniture, apparel, graphic art, packaging and typography, lighting, household decor, jewelry, stage sets, fabrics and architectural models are included in the survey, which is full of surprises and innovative ideas.
Yusuke Obuchi's model of a "Wave Garden" is an artistic triumph as well as a provocative challenge for renewable energy.
Envisioned for the Southern California coast to replace a nuclear power plant, "Wave Garden" would float like a giant quilt on 480 acres of ceramic pods, generating electricity from the Pacific's waves. When generators shut down on weekends, the 1,734 pods - each 3 inches thick - would rise just above the ocean's surface to form lagoons for swimmers and boaters.
Obuchi, 34, said he conceived the plan as a Princeton University architectural school thesis.
The show's most technically advanced object is the plastic-and-titanium replacement heart built by ABIOMED of Denvers, Mass. Weighing 4 pounds and the size of a grapefruit, the heart can be implanted in a patient's chest and runs off a battery-operated transmitter attached to a waist belt.
