Visual and Performing Arts

Style and Lifestyle in the Machine Age: The Modernist Period Rooms of “The Architect and the Industrial Arts”

Document Type

Article

Abstract

In its phenomenally popular 1929 exhibition “The Architect and the Industrial Arts,” the Metropolitan Museum of Art used the period room type of display to showcase modern designs for the home and workplace. This article traces a three-part genealogy of the Metropolitan's installation design, which derived from displays of modern furnishings in New York department stores, modernist movie sets, and the American Wing period rooms at the museum itself. The article argues that despite the modern style of the designs on display, the exhibition, through its installation architecture, actually promoted a conservative, backward-looking lifestyle governed by establishment taste and traditional gender identities.

Publication Title

Visual Resources

Publication Date

2005

Volume

21

Issue

3

First Page

245

Last Page

261

ISSN

0197-3762

DOI

10.1080/01973760500166657

Keywords

gender and design, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, modern design, museum criticism, period rooms, scopic regimes

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