The Design Museum

The Design Museum is the world’s leading museum devoted to contemporary design in every form. Founded in 1989 by Sir Terence Conran, it first opened in a converted banana warehouse in Shad Thames. In 2016, the museum moved to a landmark 1960s building in West London. Formerly the home of the Commonwealth Institute, the now Grade II* listed building features a futuristic-looking double paraboloid curved roof, a feat of engineering that was intended to evoke a tent pitched in the leafy surroundings of Holland Park. The building was redeveloped for the museum by a design team led by John Pawson. In 2018, the Design Museum was named European Museum of the Year.

The museum's permanent collection, which is free to view, features nearly 1,000 items of 20th- and 21st-century design from architecture, fashion, furniture, product and graphic design, and transport, and is an important record of the key designs that have shaped the modern world. Each year, the Design Museum presents four world-class temporary exhibitions covering fashion, film, design, and lifestyle, offering unique perspectives and interventions in the design world. The museum also features free temporary exhibitions on its balconies, which both highlight contemporary design practices and provide a platform for its Future Observatory research initiative to showcase cutting-edge work. The museum hosts workshops in its multiple learning spaces, as well as events in its 202-seat Bakala Auditorium.