Design
“From a coffee spoon to the urbanisation of the city.” In the late 1950s, these words by Niomar Moniz Sodré, the executive director of MAM Rio at the time, provided an image of a museum where artistic production was directly connected to technical production. The newly founded institution would be a place for the creation of new works of art, new equipment and an aesthetic education that would contribute to nation building.
This alliance with the industry, materialised through the practice of design, brought with it a broader relationship with rationalist principles, which entered the museum through Karl Heinz Bergmiller, Max Bill and Tomás Maldonado, all related to the Ulm School of Design.
As a result, MAM Rio became a centre for the development of design in Brazil: by means of the unrealised project of the Escola Técnica de Criação (Technical School of Creation) – which resulted into the Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial (Higher School of Industrial Design, ESDI) – and the foundation of the Instituto de Desenho Industrial (Institute of Industrial Design, IDI), which operated in the museum since 1968. The several courses, exhibitions (including three international industrial design biennials) and projects developed inside and outside the institution propose an expanded aesthetic practice – regulated by critical and rational principles, and committed to functionality.