#ArchitectureFriday | Frank Lloyd Wright’s Florida Southern College is one of the architect's boldest visions 🎓
In the early 1930s, college president Ludd M. Spivey approached Frank Lloyd Wright with an extraordinary idea: to reimagine Florida Southern College as a fully integrated architectural environment.
At the time, Wright was already working on his iconic Fallingwater, yet he accepted what would become the largest single project of his career.
The result is the ‘Child of the Sun’ - the world’s largest single-site collection of Wright-designed buildings. The campus brings together 13 structures defined by textile-block construction, covered walkways, and a unified organic design language that blurs architecture and landscape.
Built over more than two decades, its evolution was shaped by financial constraints, construction challenges, and environmental setbacks. Rather than diminishing the vision, these pressures helped create a campus that feels layered, adaptive, and alive.
Today, Florida Southern College stands as a landmark of American campus design and one of the clearest expressions of Wright’s belief in architecture that works with, not against, its environment. In 2012, it was designated a National Historic Landmark.
📸 @ilcontephotography
Make family time more creative at the Design Museum 💛
Discover what’s on this month…
🎟️ Step inside two exciting exhibitions: NIGO: From Japan with Love and Wes Anderson: The Archives
🎨 Join a hands-on day of creativity at our Family Day: Design and Worldbuilding on 29 May
🧸 Discover how design shapes the world around us in Designer Maker User, our free permanent exhibition display
Plan your visit at designmuseum.org.
#InternationalDayOfFamilies
📸 1+3: @ttfinlay , 2: @anastasiia_g_b , 4: @themetcalfes2018 , 5: @emmavictoriabloom
Shapes are never just shapes.
In our free PLATFORM display, designer @simonebrewster_london explores how even the smallest objects shape the spaces around us.
Her work looks beyond materials themselves, focusing instead on the histories, places and emotions they hold - something she calls an ‘architecture of intimacies’.
She brings these objects together to create environments that feel calm and inviting, engage the senses, and shift between different settings - from the home to the forest and the temple.
Discover her work, on view at the museum until January 2027. Plan your visit via the link in bio.
Images: Inner Voice, Tropical Noire, Stepping Stools by Simone Brewster. 📸 Luke Hayes
These pictograms redefined modern communication design.
In 1972, German graphic designer and typographer Otl Aicher created the visual identity for the Munich Olympics.
Aicher, who was born #OnThisDay in 1922, developed 21 sports pictograms alongside a wider set of informational symbols, all constructed using a strict geometric grid.
Combining mathematical precision with human-centred clarity, he created a visual language that could be understood across cultures and languages. Built from simple shapes, clean lines, and a restrained colour palette, the symbols were designed to be both highly functional and universally accessible. Rooted in modernist design principles, the system prioritised clarity and legibility above all else.
The Munich pictograms quickly became a landmark in graphic design history. More than just Olympic branding, they transformed the way public information is communicated visually. Their influence can still be seen today in airports, transport systems, public signage, and wayfinding graphics around the globe.
Before the films, there are the notebooks 📝
Across years of filmmaking, Anderson has filled spiral-bound pages with early dialogue, rough storylines, and meticulous sketches of sets and props.
His favourites are the yellow-covered National Brand notebooks, packed with narrow-ruled Eye-Ease paper.
Now part of an extraordinary archive of sketches, props, puppets and costumes, these notebooks are where his distinctive worlds begin.
See them up close as part of Wes Anderson: The Archives, on until 26 July 2026.
Book via the link in bio. Members go free.
📸 Luke Hayes
#WesAndersonTheArchives
Happy birthday to typographer and graphic designer Margaret Calvert, born #OnThisDay in 1936 🎉
Calvert’s influence is embedded in the visual fabric of everyday life in the UK - from the road signage system developed with Jock Kinneir, to wayfinding for railways and airports, and the typeface co-designed with Henrik Kubel for GOV.UK.
From the archives: a selection of her instantly recognisable work.
Inside the world of Moonrise Kingdom 🛶
Hear from Head of Curatorial and Interpretation Lucia Savi on the design thinking behind the film’s fictional books - and how they help construct its distinct visual world.
Wes Anderson: The Archives is open until July 2026 - book your tickets via the link in bio.
#WesAndersonTheArchives
#ArchitectureFriday | Discover Norwich’s Art Nouveau gem - the Royal Arcade ✨
Opened in 1899, this elegant covered passage was designed by architect George Skipper, who went on to shape many of Norwich’s most distinctive buildings.
A standout example of Art Nouveau design, the arcade is lined with decorative tiles inspired by the movement’s signature themes - nature, fluid forms, and feminine motifs. Look closely and you’ll spot flowing florals and elegant peacocks, designed by W. J. Neatby, also known for his work on the Harrods Food Hall.
Later additions include the dramatic iron-and-glass lanterns, installed during the arcade’s 1980s restoration.
Set in the heart of the city, between Gentleman’s Walk and Castle Street, the Royal Arcade offers a shopping experience shaped by history and style - a reminder of a time when ornate arcades defined fashionable retail, long before modern shopping centres.
📷 Historic England Archive.
@nigo has entered the building ⚡
NIGO: From Japan with Love is now open. Step inside the creative world of a pioneer who helped bridge streetwear and luxury fashion - and see what else is happening at the museum this month.
Find out more and plan your visit at designmuseum.org
Is your studio already rethinking where materials come from, how things are made, or who supplies them? This grant is for you.
We’re opening applications for the Future Observatory Prototype Grants: four awards of up to £70,000 for UK architecture and design studios researching more sustainable supply chains.
These grants are for second-stage design research, work that is ready for the next step.
We’re looking for proposals that break from business-as-usual approaches, particularly those rooted in bioregional, biomaterial and regenerative thinking.
Open to small and medium-sized studios across all design disciplines.
Link in Future Observatory’s bio to read the full brief and apply.
#design #research #funding #designresearch
*Closed* 🎨 GIVEAWAY 🎨
To celebrate our upcoming Family Day - inspired by the cinematic worlds of Wes Anderson and Thames & Hudson’s Mini Artists series - we’re giving one lucky family the chance to win a joyful day of creativity at the Design Museum.
The prize includes two adult and two child tickets to Family Day: Design and Worldbuilding, plus a set of Mini Artists books to keep the creativity going at home.
To enter, simply follow us and @thamesandhudsonchildrens , like this post, and comment below telling us who you’d bring.
Expect a playful day of designing, imagining and building your own worlds…
This is a one-day event on 29 May. The giveaway closes at 10am GMT on Monday 11 May 2026, and one winner will be selected at random and contacted via DM from the Design Museum account. Entrants must be UK residents. Travel and any additional costs are not included, and tickets are non-transferable.
Find out more at designmuseum.org
