Collection Selects: Wyss Institute
https://www-6.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18391647/
- iron, fruitwood (pear?)
- Gift of Anonymous Donor
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University leverages nature's design principles to develop new radical soluitions for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and engineering. Guest curated by Wyss founding director Don Ingber, in collaboration with his co-faculty, Joann Aizenberg, Jennifer Lewis, Radhika Nagpal, and Pam Silver, the team selected works from Cooper Hewitt's collection to illustrate the theme of Biofuturism. Biofuturism is a formulation of Futurism, the art movement that spread across Europe and the world in the early twentieth century that celebrated the sensation of energy, speed, and dynamism in modern technology. Its pioneering visionaries believed that their creations would hurtle the world into the future. They practiced across many media: painting, sculptre, theater, film, and architecture as well as graphic, industrial, interior, urban, and textile design. One century later, the Wyss Institute is helping to lead a Biofuturism movement that looks to nature for inspiration. It is led by visionaries who use biological design principles and collaborate across multiple disciplines. In this Selects exhibition, the Wyss Insitute team presents objcts from Cooper Hewitt's collection, the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum, as well as the Wyss Institute's own projects to explore how Biofuturism--anticipating the future--can use design to engineer a better world.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This print, designed by Wenzel Jamnitzer, court goldsmith to the Habsburg Emperors, belongs to an album featuring geometric figures corresponding to the 5 Platonic solids. Plato connected these geodesic forms with the elements of fire (tetrahedron), earth (cube), air (octahedron), heavenly aether (dodecahedron), water (icosahedron). Here, Jamnitzer presents 2 complex polyhedral variants.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This poster is for an exhibition of Kenneth Snelson’s work in Bryant Park in New York City. Snelson is known for his sculptures composed of both flexible and rigid components. They are arranged according to the idea of tensegrity (tensional integrity), or “floating compression,” where a structure is composed of multiple stiff struts that never physically touch but are pulled up and open through interconnection with a series of tensile cables.
Peter Collingwood was consumed by his interest in textile structures, fascinated by “the myriad ways man has found of manipulating threads.” Macro gauze was one of Collingwood’s technical and aesthetic innovations. In traditional gauze, open spaces are created by locking wefts into place by crossing and re-crossing the warps. Here, the technique is combined with a very few rigid wefts to allow the tensioned warp threads to deviate from their conventional vertical path and move at angles, creating strong geometric patterns.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
On May 12, 1619, citizens of the Italian town of Reggio Emilia transferred the miraculous painting of the Virgin of Reggio to a new shrine, and organized a procession to celebrate. This print, taken from a book describing the event, illustrates a float for the parade in the form of a fantastical, fire-breathing dragon, upon whose neck sits the Virgin and Child.
In the early 20th century, steamships and ocean liners provided tremendous inspiration for designers who looked to the future. This design for an undersea lounge was a collaboration with Russell Heston, whom Donald Deskey hired when he saw his concept for an undersea lounge. Their design features a geodesic dome of steel and double-glazed, tempered, and laminated glass accessed by a pressure chamber at left. Below the seafloor, the dome’s foundation houses mechanical and back-of-house facilities. Heston’s use of jeweltone pastels heightens the shimmering allure of the subaquatic environment, while his skill as a technical draftsman impresses upon the viewer the plausibility of such a space.
In the early 20th century, steamships and ocean liners provided tremendous inspiration for designers who looked to the future. This design for an undersea lounge was a collaboration with Russell Heston, whom Donald Deskey hired when he saw his concept for an undersea lounge. Their design features a geodesic dome of steel and double-glazed, tempered, and laminated glass accessed by a pressure chamber at left. Below the seafloor, the dome’s foundation houses mechanical and back-of-house facilities. Heston’s use of jeweltone pastels heightens the shimmering allure of the subaquatic environment, while his skill as a technical draftsman impresses upon the viewer the plausibility of such a space.
In 1950s America, scientific progress held the promise of a brighter future. Designs for textiles echoed this sentiment with the introduction of complex prints based on scientific and mathematical formulas and symbols. Time Capsule with its dense clusters of polyhedrons was a reaction against the flowers, fruits and stripes that were so dominant in the immediate post-WWII period.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
Fuller’s Ten-Deck House, composed of ten geometrically shaped floors, was designed to be mass-produced for single-family housing but was never realized. His lightweight aluminum structure was intended to be airlifted by zeppelin and lowered into a crater. Fuller produced low-cost multiples of his drawing using a mimeograph and hand-coloring the prints.
Fuller’s Ten-Deck House, composed of ten geometrically shaped floors, was designed to be mass-produced for single-family housing but was never realized. His lightweight aluminum structure was intended to be airlifted by zeppelin and lowered into a crater. Fuller produced low-cost multiples of his drawing using a mimeograph and hand-colored the prints.
In this textile, Judith Kngwarreye, a member of the Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory, combines bush plants, reptiles, and insects in a dynamic composition. Most prominent is the plume-like form of the honey grevillea (tharrkarre), a plant that produces nectar that can be sucked directly from the flower or stirred in water to make a sweet drink. All these animals fit into the scheme of both everyday life and the Dreamtime, the time of the Ancestor Beings at the beginning of creation.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
In this book cover design by Elaine Lustig Cohen, interconnected struts form a geometric abstract design, while cleverly evoking the content of the book. The cover appears to feature a portion of R. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome, an architectural structure that relies on the principle of tensegrity. Tensegrity is a term coined by Fuller to suggest the joining of tension and integrity, or elastic cables under tension with compressive rods
Robert Smithson, with Walter de Maria and Michael Heizer, pioneered Earthworks, an art movement utilizing earth as sculptural material to re-shape terrain in response to a specific site, knowing that the work would be subjected to nature’s processes and cycles. Spiral Jetty (1970) was a spiral ridge protrusion of earth and rocks collected from the site and sculpted in the Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA. Partly submerged, it was Smithson’s most celebrated work, and its changing state has been documented through film, photographs, his drawings, as well as this poster.
Likely a design for furniture or sculpture, this drawing reflects Dan Friedman’s resistance to the purist, modernist idea that form must follow function. Influenced by his involvement in a European-based philosophical dialogue about furniture since the 1970s, he coined the term “mental furniture” to describe forms in which symbolic meanings beyond the functional are possible. Suggesting both the technological and the human, this design reveals the interplay between pragmatism and fantasy that occupied Friedman throughout his career.
This design, the reverse side of a poster for an exhibition organized in Athens, suggests the difficulty of distinguishing between the natural and the artificial. Friedman proposes the emergence of a new reality in which the technologies of computer simulation, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering have contributed to an altered consciousness. Notions of authenticity and beauty are challenged through the profusion of imagery and dispersed, superimposed bars of text.
Giacomo Balla, a leading figure in the Futurist movement, which rejected the past in favor of the dynamic technological developments of the future, created this set and lighting design for Fuochi d’Artificio (Fireworks). Featuring music by Igor Stravinsky, the short performance was first produced in Rome in 1917 and included no actors or dancers—only dynamic, colorful sets and lighting. Included in a portfolio of Balla’s set designs, this composition incorporates geometric shapes in vivid colors that would have been lit internally and externally, responding to Stravinsky’s musical score.
This customized surgical implant represents a collaboration between physicians and textile engineers. The embroidery, of polyester suture thread, mimics the natural fibrous arrays of ligaments. The lacy structure that remains when the base cloth dissolves acts as a scaffold for new tissue growth.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
These earrings exemplify Muehling’s approach to interpreting nature. He can take a seemingly mundane natural form and render it in a way that emphasizes its beauty. Some of his work in jewelry and other media elaborates a simple form into a more complex design—in this case, a manipulated spiral shell.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
John McQueen made this basket for a 1982 exhibition on lace. Employing a simple plaiting technique commonly used in bobbin lace, a majority of the basket shows the whole or torchon ground stitch. The intention was to show how simple techniques of plaiting and interlacing are capable of creating objects that are lightweight yet strong.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
Arje Griegst’s Konkylie (Triton) collection of nautically themed tea, coffee, and dining services was manufactured in porcelain by Royal Copenhagen and included thematically linked jewelry in various media. The collection’s name is a nod to Greek mythology: Triton, a son of Poseidon, is usually depicted as a merman. In the poster, the strangely naturalistic placement of the dining service against the idyllic beach backdrop evokes the lore of mermaids, lounging along the surf.
This photograph by M. Thérèse Bonney, with its contrasting light and shadow, dramatically captures the curvilinear form of the spiral stair in the Martel House in Paris. Architect Robert Mallet-Stevens (French, 1886–1945) incorporated clean, sculptural, machine-like, elements to create a modernist aesthetic in this residence.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
The world’s first insect-scale flying robot has a wingspan of 3 cm (1 in.) and is the approximate weight of a honeybee, its source of inspiration. Harvard researchers were responding to the alarming collapse of bee colonies worldwide and wanted to replicate their swarming behavior. Other applications include search-and-rescue missions, environmental sensors, and covert surveillance.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
As a consultant for General Dynamics, a company that produced cutting-edge and classified defense technology for the United States, Erik Nitsche was asked to develop a public-facing graphic identity for the company that expressed peace and prosperity. He created 6 designs representing different fields of the company’s scientific and technological research. One of General Dynamics’ most famous projects and the subject of this poster was the manufacture of the first atomic submarine, the Nautilus, which Nitsche captures with a crisp, modernist aesthetic combined with scientific imagery.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
The underlying geometry of this prosthetic leg was derived from a 3D scan of the user’s opposite leg, and thus restores body symmetry and accounts for the user’s unique anatomy. Creating this prosthetic requires no medical specialists—just a tablet-based app and an easy-to-use scanner. Trained specialists are rare in many parts of the world. Because this limb is custom-made for a particular user, the product is a lower theft risk than a standard prosthetic.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
Noguchi uses the structural integrity of steel rods to create a matrix of connections between a flat, round birch seat and a base. The larger seat may appear to create a top-heavy impression, but is in fact in perfect balance with the smaller base, due to the alignment of the rods connecting the two pieces.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
This object is currently on display in room 105 in Carnegie Mansion.
Sculptor Kenneth Snelson is best known for his tensegrity (tensional integrity) structures, like this model, which are composed of multiple rigid struts that do not physical touch but are pulled up and open through interconnection with a series of tensile cables. These structures are found in nature – spider webs, inch worms – and are profoundly stable. Architect and engineer R. Buckminster Fuller introduced the idea to Snelson at Black Mountain College in North Carolina where he was a student in 1948-49.
The ability to embed vascular networks into bioprinted human tissues is essential for applications ranging from disease modeling to regenerative medicine. To efficiently deliver oxygen and nutrients, a pervasive network of vascular channels is needed such that all cells in the surrounding tissue are within a distance less than 1 millimeter away from any given blood vessel. Jennifer Lewis and her research team at the Wyss Institute have pioneered a method for fabricating vascularized human tissues via 3D bioprinting. Specifically, her team has developed multiple 3D printable bio-inks that enable one to directly print cells, extracellular matrices (which provide a supporting scaffold for the printed cells), and embedded vascular networks within these biofabricated human tissues. The display shown here is approximately 100 times larger than the vascular features typically printed in her lab. This large-scale model highlights the branching, oxygen-rich arterial (red) and oxygen-depleted venous (blue) capillaries that are present within these bioprinted human tissues (not shown).
In nature, thousands of individuals can cooperate to create complex structures purely through mutual interactions -- from cells that self-organize to form complex organisms, to the mesmerizing motion of fish schools and bird flocks. The kilobot project endeavours to recreate that kind of complexity artificially, demonstrating for the first time a thousand simple robots, with no leader, cooperating amongst themselves to self-organize complex shape and behavior.
Organs-on-Chips are microdevices composed of a clear, flexible, polymer that contain tiny hollow channels lined by living cells that recapitulate human organ-level functions and disease states. They are designed to replace animal testing for drug development and personalized medicine.
In nature, thousands of individuals can cooperate to create complex structures purely through mutual interactions—from cells that self-organize to form complex organisms, to the mesmerizing motion of fish schools and bird flocks. The kilobot project endeavours to recreate that kind of complexity artificially, demonstrating for the first time a thousand simple robots, with no leader, cooperating amongst themselves to self-organize complex shape and behavior
Much of the living world, from ears and lungs to the bottom of beetles’ feet, is lined with nanoscale hairs swaying, twisting, and assembling. Using simple controls such as geometry, flexibility, and stickiness, the Aizenberg group programs arrays of tiny, synthetic, nano-fibers to bundle together, twist around each other into chiral swirls, and form complex hierarchical architectures. These strategies can lead to the design of functional surfaces with self-cleaning, adhesive, memory storage, capture-and-release, and many more capabilities.
Much of the living world, from ears and lungs to the bottom of beetles’ feet, is lined with nanoscale hairs swaying, twisting, and assembling. Using simple controls such as geometry, flexibility, and stickiness, the Aizenberg group programs arrays of tiny, synthetic, nano-fibers to bundle together, twist around each other into chiral swirls, and form complex hierarchical architectures. These strategies can lead to the design of functional surfaces with self-cleaning, adhesive, memory storage, capture-and-release, and many more capabilities.
Pamela Silver is creating a bionic leaf that couples the power of chemistry with the versatility of biology. The leaf uses power generated by a human-made solar energy cell to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, which is then fed to genetically engineered bacteria contained within the engineered leaf that utilize carbon dioxide to produce liquid fuel, much like a living plant.
