Kulapat Yantrasast of wHY Architecture, talks to Cities x Design about the intricacies of museum design. With the Speed Art Museum of Louisville, Kentucky as the backdrop, he explains how “acupuncture architecture” is going to transform the museum from an historic temple into a vibrant center for the creative community.

Steve Wilson, Founder, 21c Museum Hotel, talks to Cities x Design about philanthropy, collecting art, regenerating a city center and why he chose to open an art hotel in Louisville, Kentucky.

Louisville was not part of the original Cities x Design itinerary but the 21c Museum Hotel changed the course of our trip. 21c is not only the cool creative magnet of downtown Louisville, it is also the first and only American museum dedicated to 21st century art.

Founded by art and design collectors Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown, the 21c was conceived as a place where people can experience thought-provoking art. The private collection owned by the couple is internally managed by an in-house curator and rotates regularly.

The unique museum-hotel combination introduces new crowds to the world of international contemporary art. According to Steve Wilson, the local population’s response to 21c has been very positive. As a result Louisville’s Main Street is now transitioning toward a new era rooted in art, design and creativity.

The latest project to date is Museum Plaza, across the street from 21c Museum, and another initiative of the Brown-Wilson duo. Described as a “city within a city”, Museum Plaza is an ambitious architectural project that encompasses 1.5 million square feet of multi-purpose space in multiple towers. It will blend art with retail, residential, office and educational spaces in order to strengthen the Main Street Historic District and eventually turn it into an exceptional destination in the region.

Louisville’s French ancestry shows in its “savoir-vivre”: art, good food, quality drinks and beautiful countryside are part of the local lifestyle. The city takes pride in its traditions and is also very skilled at creating new variations of its Southern culture (like the Green Building and 732 Social). This perfect balance between authenticity and open-mindedness left us with a strong impression. We can’t wait to see what Louisville tries next.

Cities x Design set out to clearly identify the role designers play in promoting and shaping their communities. We found a great spokesperson for Columbus in Gabe Shultz. He talked to us about creativity in Columbus, becoming a designer, his work and how he manages to do it all in one go.

Richard Crabtree talks with Cities x Design about the design community and design economy of Columbus, OH, and the visionary work of Salvato Coe + Gabor.

The Columbus College of Art and Design recently published a report entitled Creative Columbus, which is an inventory study of Central Ohio’s creative industries including the arts, design, performance, media and marketing.

The prominent design fields in the area are fashion, industrial, interior and communication design, with a concentration of businesses in downtown Columbus and many self-employed creatives in based in Clintonville.

During our visit we took a closer look at communication designers and their role in local businesses. We want to highlight CSCA (Columbus Society of Communicating Arts) for its unique and independent approach to design promotion, and its Creative Best Awards initiative that rewards local talents.

A special mention goes out to Ologie, a branding agency that helps businesses with social media strategies, and to Gabe Shultz for his insight on the role that graphic designers play in the corporate world and for keeping the experimental alive through his project Bored Sketchbooks.

Photos: © Jeff Seslar of Chromatic Identity – © Gabe Shultz

Paul Davis, Paul Nini and Kristen Harris talk to Cities x Design about what makes Columbus a creative city and why the Columbus Society of Communicating Arts revels in its independence.

For the longest time Columbus has been considered a typical American city and its local population has been viewed as a mirror image of the U.S. population as a whole. For this reason the city is often used as a testing ground for corporate America’s latest products and services.

Large chain retailers and brands such as Abercrombie and Fitch and The Limited (parent company of Victoria’s Secret) are headquartered in Columbus. Similarly, large insurance companies are firmly based there as well.

Despite such facts, Columbus doesn’t lack personality and is not afraid of supporting independent initiatives. And with the largest university campus in the United States, Ohio State University is a strong local asset that grows and graduates inspired young minds and plays a role in spreading fresh ideas into the city’s diverse communities.

During our short stay, we had the opportunity to walk High Street of Short North, an area recently praised in the New York Times. Highlights include Jeni’s Ice Cream offering handmade confections made with locally sourced ingredients, the spacious and luminous Northstar Cafe, and Tigertree, a select store with unique design pieces from the area and beyond. The noteworthy North Market (the only market in Columbus and also small business incubator) was unfortunately closed during our visit.

Andy Warhol’s creative approach challenged the boundaries between art and design and ingeniously introduced multi-disciplinarity into the arts. He merged it all in his career: from advertising to illustration, photography, film, music, and sculpture.

By embracing creativity as a whole and by collaborating with the most inspired talents, Andy Warhol showed that commercial art (which we like to refer to in this project as ‘design’) acts as a mirror to the world we live in and can serve as interesting social study content.

Andy Warhol’s fame began with his illustration work for established brands like Tiffany’s , Columbia Records and Harper’s Bazaar to name a few. His success as a commercial artist eventually pushed him towards visual experiments that captured the American way of life shaped by consumerism, materialism and celebrity culture.

A personal favorite at the Andy Warhol Museum are the “Time Capsules”: cardboard boxes that he filled with everyday objects, photos, letters, and other collectible items, from 1974 onwards. The Museum today holds over 600 Time Capsules in their archives and gallery spaces.

The few capsules on display are fascinating from a creative and anthropological perspective as they intimately reveal the random complexity of Warhol’s existence and the beautiful designs of everyday life. Our visit to the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh showed us that life is art, art is design and design is life.

Full Pittsburgh City Report

James and Larkin of Wall to Wall Studios share their insights into the keys to success of rebranding a neighborhood.