Featuring over 100 objects from the Vitra Design Museum’s collection and archive, the exhibition at Vitra Schaudepot feels like stepping into a show from the future, or one of the versions of the future. Curated around the fascinating dialogue between science fiction and design, Science Fiction Design: From Space Age to Metaverse probes the futuristic worlds humans have imagined and created through the years. Perhaps it’s the capacity for humans to dream of the stars that sets us apart. We looked at the sun and created a god. That has always been the allure of science fiction, our ability to envision a different world, an alternate way of being.
One may think of the expansive worlds created for movies such as Blade Runner (1982) or Dune (2021). Take Doctor Who for instance, the design for the “bigger on the inside” TARDIS has always been a matter of contention among fans. Design sets science fiction apart; on the other hand, science fiction fosters the capacity for innovation in designers. Both have deeply influenced each other, as the exhibition at the museum in Germany hopes to show. On view from May 18, 2024 - May 11, 2025, not only are the furniture designs inspired by our imagination of the futuristic, the exhibition design by Argentine visual artist and designer Andrés Reisinger sets the stage for a display that feels like stepping into a Christopher Nolan film set.
Speaking about his vision for the exhibition, Reisinger added, “As soon as the Vitra Design Museum invited me to work on this exhibition, I knew I wanted to incorporate the themes of Argentine fantasy writer Jorge Luis Borges, whom I have long admired. A central motif in his work is mirrors, symbolic of portals to alternate realities. With this in mind, I resolved to honour Borges by making mirrors the focal points of the exhibition, utilising them to reflect and evoke multiple realities and timelines intertwining, creating a new dimension within our contemporary world. I am thrilled with what we have achieved with this exhibition, which speaks of a time and a space that truly knows no time and space.” So, let us step into a future that doesn’t exist and yet does, in some capacity.
To make the connection with the fantastical and sometimes eerie world of science fiction and the products and smart devices on display, the design exhibition includes selected works from film and literature starting from the 19th century, the era when the genre gained popularity. At the time of its supposed origin, writers used the genre to reflect upon urgent issues of the time, mainly the rampant industrial and scientific advancements the period was subject to. As science fiction and technology would evolve, so would the narratives. Soon, writers began to imagine satellites in space and the moon race, radio, and our incessant addiction to television and smartphones; all of which would come true in some form. Too bad we couldn’t also get flying cars.
Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash even went so far as to predict the metaverse, which as the exhibition’s title shows, is one of the focuses of the timeline for the display. Not only did advancements in technology influence how stories were told, but they influenced the kind of stories that gained popularity. Reflections on current crises from climate change to the advent of artificial intelligence are still some of the most popular tropes for the genre.
The advancement in technology and a fundamental rethinking of modern lifestyles would also influence the evolution of product design; as displayed in the works of designers such as Gae Aulenti, Eero Aarnio, Luigi Colani, Joe Colombo and Verner Panton with organic shapes and shiny plastic surfaces betraying a futuristic, modern vision for contemporary life. A lot of this could also be attributed to the zeitgeist of the age of space travel and its technologies with many designers also creating furnishings for film sets. One may think of Olivier Mourgue’s Djinn seating series in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); Eero Aarnio’s Tomato Chair in Barry Sonnenfeld’s Men in Black (1997); or Pierre Paulin’s Ribbon Chair in Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 (2017). Some other perhaps surprising cameos include Marc Newson’s Orgone Chair in Prometheus (2012) or Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Argyle Chair (1897) in Blade Runner (1982). All these find their home in the exhibition space at Vitra.
An interesting facet of the display is to look at how product designers imagined the future would look, based on the promises of the technology at the time versus what transpired. The metaverse is probably one of the best examples to discuss this dichotomy. But, we could also look at the advent of 3D printing and computational design in general. The display includes chair designs such as Joris Laarman’s Aluminum Gradient Chair (2013), the first 3D-printed metal chair. As the exhibition rightly posits, technologies such as artificial intelligence and the rise of virtual realities and spaces such as the metaverse provide new horizons for the designers of today.
The allure of the metaverse is represented by the works of Reisinger, perhaps best known for straddling the boundaries between the promise of the virtual and the material world. Having gained recognition with the wave of artists and designers working with NFTs, the exhibition presents his aesthetic as emblematic of a digital generation. On display are the visual artist’s Shipping Series (2021) and his Hortensia Chair(2018), the latter a playful and simultaneously futuristic object that the artist and designer initially developed as an NFT before producing it as an actual piece of furniture.
Science fiction has always been about our reaction to advancements in science and technology, “a depiction of the real.” In the mirrored hallways that Reisinger created for Vitra’s display are depicted not only versions of what has been our reality, but what it could still be. A question could be raised about what science fiction today means. Do we succumb to the virtual or rally against the inevitable destruction of the material? Does not a display of the very material objects of our visions of the future suggest the latter? What stock should design take in androids’ dreams of electric sheep? Perhaps, science fiction design must resort to depicting the escapist in a world faced with an imminent crisis.
What do you think?