Russel Wright Design Center

The Challenge

For audiences familiar with Wright's design career, the gallery adds a rich interpretive layer. For others, new to his work, the exhibition reveals the relationship between his objects, the architecture, and the landscape of Manitoga.

To create the gallery, our renovation called for removing a partition between two small bedrooms. An existing resin partition is relocated to allow for an accessible entry, but the other elements of the house are left intact.

Project Vision

The exhibition design echoes the geometry and materiality of many of Wright's designs without mimicry. The gentle curvature of the gallery installation, modest in scale, is built with white oak, a tree common to the Manitoga forests.

The space invites inquiry into 20th-century American design and the forces that shaped it. We agree with Wright that the beauty of the things we use in our everyday life does make a difference. It is about joy, our soul, and the spirit of creativity that is central to our humanity.

Design & Execution

The gallery perimeter takes a more visual approach with the convergence of form, color, and pattern—three formal themes displayed with dense assemblages of objects. This is a unifying pragmatic approach to content delivery with an organic formal language.

A large display table sits at the center of the room, surrounded by three display walls. The table is a unique timeline that brings together every decade of Wright’s design career.

Slideshow

Russel Wright Design Center