Glenn Adamson, the new director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, came to his job last week but was already making plans. “The key thing is craftsmanship,” he said, citing as his inspiration “Craftsmanship in a Changing World,” a 1956 show at the museum, when it was known as the Museum of Contemporary Crafts. Mr. Adamson said he is interested in people who work with digital technology in any number of areas. “It could be architecture or fabric,” he said.
Caroline Baumann, the director of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, which hosts the awards, introduced Janette Sadik-Khan, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation since 2007, who won the design patron award, for, among other things, starting the Citi Bike program and adding 350 miles of bike lanes and 54 plazas in the city. Ms. Sadik-Khan sees the streets as a New Yorker’s front yard. They represent “an expanded definition of design,” she said, adding, “You wouldn’t design your home to be unsafe.”
Mr. Gore handed out the corporate and institutional achievement award to TED, the nonprofit organization that holds conferences on technology, entertainment and design, and that in 2006 offered its talks online for free. Chris Anderson, the curator of TED, said, “Design is not just about the function of objects, it’s to reimagine the future.” He paused, and added, “Would somebody please redesign this?” and showed a picture of the Capitol building in Washington.
TED inspired other guests at the event. When the conference moves its primary site from Long Beach, Calif., to Vancouver, Canada, next year, it will be held in a David Rockwell-designed pop-up theater. “There will be 10 different ways to sit,” Mr. Rockwell said. “On beanbag chairs, on a sofa with six friends, or in back with your iPad. No seat will be more than 85 feet from the stage.”
Irreverence also had its moments. When Michael Sorkin, the architect, writer and scholar, accepted the design mind award, he said, “I’d like to thank Harvey Weinstein, Sue Mengers … Oh, that’s the wrong speech.”
Tom Wolfe, the writer, dressed in his usual spotless white suit, introduced James Wines, the 81-year-old architect and artist, who won the lifetime achievement award for buildings whose sides peel away, and for designing a 360-foot-high, 400,000-square-foot home in Mumbai, where seven levels were designed to be open-air gardens.
“I had to talk Tom into introducing me, and said, ‘If you don’t do it, Tom, the Cooper-Hewitt will get Kim Kardashian or Lindsay Lohan, and it would take so long to get them up to speed,” Mr. Wines said.
Also honored at the gala: Studio Gang Architecture for architecture design; Paula Scher for communication design; Behnaz Sarafpour for fashion design; Local Projects for interaction design; Aidlin Darling Design for interior design; Margie Ruddick for landscape architecture; and NewDealDesign for product design.
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