{"id":2099,"date":"2025-06-19T09:50:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T09:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/?p=2099"},"modified":"2025-06-25T15:25:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T15:25:28","slug":"watch-charles-and-ray-eames-1975-vision-to-reimagine-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/19\/watch-charles-and-ray-eames-1975-vision-to-reimagine-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art\/","title":{"rendered":"watch: charles and ray eames\u2019 1975 vision to reimagine the metropolitan museum of art"},"content":{"rendered":"

a film and scale model reveal charles and ray eames\u2019 proposal<\/h2>\n

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In 1975, The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/strong><\/a> invited Charles and Ray Eames<\/strong> <\/a>to rethink how people could experience its vast collection. As a result, they produced Metropolitan Overview, a nine-minute film reimagining the museum as a more accessible, intuitive, and emotionally generous space. This layered work had long been stored away until it was newly restored by the Library of Congress, and it has just been released to the public for the first time through The Met\u2019s new archival initiative, From the Vaults.<\/p>\n

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Commissioned by the Museum\u2019s director at the time, Thomas Hoving, at the dawn of its second century, the film was part of a two-part proposal by the Eames Office. Alongside a scale model of the museum\u2019s galleries and additions, the film was envisioned as a documentation\u00a0and a means of storytelling to reframe The Met as a welcoming cultural host beyond its established institutional presence, reimagining how it could welcome, orient, and engage visitors in the 21st century. Using collage-like juxtapositions of scale models, archival footage, speculative tech, and symbolic moments such as fountains, flutes, and children walking, the film maps out a museum in which every visitor, from the scholar to the tourist, would feel personally invited into dialogue with the art on view.<\/p>\n

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video and all images \u00a9 Eames Office, LLC unless stated otherwise | via The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/p>\n

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a new vision for the metropolitan museum of art<\/h2>\n

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Whether through films, exhibitions, or architecture \u2014 or the furniture the designers<\/strong><\/a> are largely celebrated for \u2014 Charles and Ray Eames were always deeply invested in how people learn, feel, and find meaning. Metropolitan Overview carries that same spirit, imagining the museum as a place that anticipates the needs of each of its visitors. The film opens with miniature museumgoers moving through redesigned halls, navigating galleries aided by computer terminals and personalized digital guides, which were subtly radical proposals for their time. The Information Hall was at the core of this vision, a space where guests could generate custom routes through the collection, screen short films, read about global events in art and archaeology, and interact with archival material once hidden in storage. These tools were intended to deepen the emotional and intellectual connection between visitor and object, echoing the Eameses\u2019 belief that good design was always rooted in empathy and understanding.<\/p>\n

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Timelines, layered displays, and scale-model vignettes carried this thinking further. Inspired by the Eameses\u2019 earlier exhibition work such as Mathematica and The World of Franklin and Jefferson, the museum\u2019s proposed reconfiguration emphasized collage as both a spatial and conceptual strategy. Visitors would chart their own paths through timelines, layered displays, and screening rooms, echoing the logic of a well-set table or storybook. A highly detailed architectural model of The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/strong><\/a> also accompanied Metropolitan Overview. Though now lost to time, it was said to be remarkably detailed, so lifelike that some visitors thought it was real. The film preserves this vision, depicting an ambitious, human-centered museum that links knowledge and emotion while echoing the Eameses\u2019 belief in design as a public tool, and in museums as places for reorientation amid the noise of urban life.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"watch:
in 1975, the museum invited Charles and Ray Eames to rethink how its collection could be experienced<\/p>\n

\"watch:
the nine-minute film reimagining the museum as a more accessible, intuitive, and emotionally generous space<\/p>\n

\"watch:
objects of the museum as photographed by Charles, Ray, and the Eames Office staff during the making of the film<\/p>\n

\"watch:
the film has been released to the public for the first time through The Met\u2019s new archival initiative, From the Vaults<\/p>\n

\"watch:
the film was accompanied by a scale model of the museum\u2019s galleries and additions<\/p>\n

\"watch:
the proposed reconfiguration emphasized collage as both a spatial and conceptual strategy<\/p>\n

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\t\t\"charles-ray-eames-1975-vision-met-museum-designboom-01\"<\/p>\n

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reimagining how The Met could welcome, orient, and engage visitors in the 21st century<\/p>\n

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\t\t<\/p>\n

\"watch:
though now lost to time, the model was said to be remarkably detailed that some visitors thought it was real<\/p>\n

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the film depicts an ambitious, human-centered museum that links knowledge and emotion<\/p>\n

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project info:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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name:<\/strong> Metropolitan Overview<\/p>\n

designers: <\/strong>Charles and Ray Eames<\/a> | @eamesoffice<\/a><\/p>\n

institution:<\/strong> The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0@metmuseum<\/a><\/p>\n

The post watch: charles and ray eames\u2019 1975 vision to reimagine the metropolitan museum of art<\/a> appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

a film and scale model reveal charles and ray eames\u2019 proposal \u00a0 In 1975, The Metropolitan Museum of Art invited Charles and Ray Eames to rethink how people could experience its vast collection. As a result, they produced Metropolitan Overview, a nine-minute film reimagining the museum as a more accessible, intuitive, and emotionally generous space. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2099"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2111,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions\/2111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.www.good-broker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}