Design’s Impact From 15th Century On Part of Reopening of Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

TORONTO — To call this ambitious is no exaggeration.

In October 2022, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts closed its decorative arts and design pavilion to the public, embarking then on a mission to create a more powerful reinstallation of one of the most important collections of its kind in North America.

Pulling this off, however, was no small feat.

With more than 24,000 diverse objects from the 15^th century onwards in its possession, a massive editing process got underway to reconfigure the Liliane and David M. Stewart Pavilion — the MMFA’s home for its decorative arts and design collection.

Those efforts culminated, ultimately, in the selection of 800 works for the pavilion’s Sept. 13 relaunch, including silverware, ceramics, jewelry, furniture, textiles, glassware, craft and industrial design objects — many of which have never before been displayed to the public.

“Technically a reinstallation like this is eight times the work of a normal exhibition,” said Mary-Dailey Desmarais, the Zhao-Ionescu chief curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Yet “new patterns began to emerge,” according to guest curator and author Rachel Gotlieb, particularly in how design impacted daily life around the globe and across cultures.

“In telling this story across time and space we started to see a blend of cultures that was different than what we had noted in the past,” said Gotlieb, who has held key positions at Sacramento’s Crocker Art Museum, as well as Toronto’s Design Exchange and Gardiner Museum, where she curated numerous exhibitions.

“We started to see and feel how design impacts lives,” said Gotlieb. “Its impact may be unseen but it is there in the products that we use to navigate the world.”

Told against the historical backdrop of global trade, colonialism, imperialism, the Industrial Revolution, modernism and 21^st century design, the pavilion’s main floor highlights design as a form of cultural expression.

Its upper level digs into the functionality of design as influenced by new materials and technological advances.

Highlights include American architect Richard Buckminster Fuller’s prefabricated Dymaxion bathroom (1936) and a Keracolor B1 large-format spherical television designed in 1969 by Arthur Bracegirdle.

Noteworthy, too, are Douglas Ball’s self-contained office capsule dubbed the “Clipper CS-1” (1992); the 10^th-anniversary edition of the smart for two car (2009); as well as a rarely displayed miniature Louis XV commode and Sèvres breakfast service depicting miniatures of famed female literary and artistic figures from the 17th and 18th centuries painted by Jean Georget.

But also striking is the reinstallation’s fresh perspective on design innovation in the fields of well-being, communications, domestic life, office work and transportation.

One section, for example, highlights vehicles designed for moving different groups such as the carriage, bicycle, snowmobile or electric car.

Another reflects on the development of workplace communications through the design of telephones, TVs and personal computers.

And yet another features Renaissance-era glazed earthenware medicinal jars, perfume bottles, vacuums and other 20^th century home appliances which illustrate design’s impact on our daily hygiene practices and wellness.

“My work was to see how these objects all intertwine,” said Gotlieb.

Viewers can peruse a new space dedicated to silver and metal works produced in Europe and Canada from the 17^th to 20^th centuries, and see how silversmithing expanded in the 1880s under the lead of trailblazer firm Birks.

Featured, too, are recent acquisitions of works by Indigenous designers including Michael Massie, Audie Murray and Caroline Monnet in collaboration with Humble Nature.

Finally, “For many years women were excluded from design as a profession,” said Desmarais. But today their influence shines throughout this pavilion.

“Design is social,” said Desmarais. “Whether it’s a computer chair or a good-grip potato peeler, we want people to have a greater appreciation for the inventiveness and creativity on display here and how it enhanced people’s well-being across time.”