Monday, July 23, 2007

How does Cleveland become "Design City"?

BOTC wants Cleveland to become a hub of design. There are various ways that this may happen over several years. There have been several positive steps that have been taken in that direction already:

1. The launch of the Cleveland Competition
2. The District of Design
3. FOA's + MVRDV's emerging work at Case
4. Kent State's graduate design program move to downtown Cleveland
5. Grassroots involvement with the Breuer Tower
6. CIA's continuing excellence
7. The evolution of such events as Ingenuity

But maybe another avenue for the substantiation of the Design City could involve local universities acquiring the fantastic archives of leading architects. See this New York Times article about the archives of such architects as Peter Eisenman and Frank Gehry. Would it not be fantastic for CWRU or Kent State to buy Gehry's archive and establish the Center for the Study of Late 20th Century Design? Such an archive located in Northeast Ohio would instantly establish credibility for such a Center and would make the institution a instant player in international design scholarship. Such an archive would soon attract other archives that would not necessarily have to be bought, just acquired.

Maybe Peter Lewis can buy it and donate it.

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