The Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture

Events at The Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture

• The Crown Wallpaper Collection

  Exhibition

  Recurring event

  The Crown Wallpaper collection consists of wallpaper pattern books mainly from the 1950s. The collection was acquired in 1989 when Crown Wall coverings generously gave a substantial part of their wallpaper archive consisting of 5,000 wallpaper samples and pattern books from the early 1950s to the late 1960s. The collection is an invaluable source for those researching the contemporary designs popular in the post war period.

   

• The Domestic Design Collection

  Exhibition

  Recurring event

  The Domestic Design collection (1850-1960) contains more than 4,000 books, pamphlets, trade and retail catalogues relating to design for the home and household management. It is used by researchers to study a diverse range of topics, from the appearance of 1930s bathroom fittings, to gender roles of the 1950s as constructed through magazine advertisements. The policy continues to the present day with the result that museum have one of the finest collections of such material in the country.

   

• Exploring Interiors: Decoration of the Home 1900-1960

  Exhibition

  Recurring event

  Exploring Interiors asks what our living rooms, dining rooms and kitchens were like in the first half of the twentieth century, and why. The displays show fabrics and wallpapers, from expensive designs in the most up to date styles to cheaper, popular patterns for the mass market. They offer a taste of the sort of choices that were available at the time. Catalogues give a glimpse of the fixtures and fittings, the furniture and furnishings that could be bought in the shops. Advertisements and magazines highlight the newest household equipment and reveal changing attitudes to the home and domestic life. But, at the same time, Exploring Interiors uses the evocative evidence of photographs and personal commentary to find out what people's homes were really like. And, more often than not, they were very different from the impression given by advertisements, catalogues and magazines.

   

• The J M Richards Library

  Exhibition

  Recurring event

  The collection of architectural books and journals was collected by Sir JM Richards (1907-1992), a leading spokesman and theorist of the Modern Movement in architecture in Britain . The library contains reference material on a wide range of subjects especially relating to architecture and town planning.