Design Museum in Kensington. Crowdsourced wall. Displays of the User, the Designer, the Maker

The idea to gather objects suggested by the general public and include them in the museum collection is definitely a creative one. On the other hand I have to ask again and again, and become boringly repetitive – who makes the decision to add certain objects to the collection but not to add other objects, what is the reasoning behind that, is the collection a really objective display of the best design pieces in the world? I tend to be somehow negative about this. I am talking not only about the Crowdsourced wall but also about the Displays (the User, the Designer, the Maker). There seemed to be serious errors in all of that. Some objects were really amazing and representing the world and history of design, others raised questions ‘why is this here? what for?’ as their existence inside the collection made no sense. E.g., the Apple Iphone, including headphones, the Apple watch and other Apple accessories. Can we say that this is something historically so important, unbelievably original and creative, one of a kind, representing our civilization and the world? Why not Nokia that actually made the first mobile phones with unique designs. I still remember the model that could be held horizontally and was especially targeted at those who liked to write many text messages – with a button for each letter. There was no other telephone like that at the time as all others were to be held vertical. And then someone designed the first phone that could be folded and someone else made the first phone with a colour display. And so on and so forth. So why is Apple in the museum but not other brands or phones? The same questions and critique can be addressed to the largest part of the museum collection. What made me completely annoyed was seeing Crocs rubber sandals. There have been other sandals in the world much more creative, original, historically valuable, outstanding etc. But someone selected Crocs? Why not Uggi boots then? Because obviously the people who add objects to the collection would not know anything about valinki (Slavic origin boots made of wool), pastalas (light leather shoes/sandals with leather strips for the ankles but no hard sole) etc. I am also critical about the division of the whole collection into Displays of the User, the Designer and the Maker. I would suggest to organize the collection chronologically or by the function of the items, maybe even by materials used. Otherwise everything can be questioned again – why is this and this object put in the Designer section, not the User or Maker? Because each object can be evaluated from different viewpoints and we can find reasoning for it to be put in ALL displays. Another critique from me is about the museum building. After finding out how much of finances have been invested in building the museum it seems as partly a wasted sum of money. Because inside the museum there is only a small part of the whole area dedicated to the actual collection and there is not much space for extension when the collection gets bigger. The library is also tiny. For reasons unknown to me there is a cafeteria with incredibly high prices and a VIP restaurant for I guess only ‘allowed guests’ (almost empty), as well as a VIP lounge which is empty, too. Besides about 70-80% of the building is nothing but an unusable space in the middle of it (beginning like an entrance hall on the ground floor that extends up to the very ceiling of the building and where one could probably install a mamouth –sized Christmas tree to celebrate the Winter Solstice but not much else). Also the interior design reminds of a strange mix of Scandinavian modern plus Soviet Union (around 1970s) interiors. The wood will get dirty, change its colour, shape and look miserable and disgusting after some years (especially the floor and everything around stairs), the use of wood in itself and also how it has been used in the interior will lose in the rush for the timeless design award. Was it all worth it? Plus I have to agree to the person who wrote a review about the museum in the Guardian – the location of the museum building among luxus apartments (reasoning – we will sell apartments and get back the invested money that was needed to build the museum), mix of the private and public spheres is not the best choice.