Design: Object Lesson in Beauty

DESIGN Object Lesson in Beauty When future archaeologists excavate the ruins of Los Angeles and New York, they are more likely to judge the 20th century's standards of beauty by shards of Corning Ware, martini mix ers and stainless-steel subway turnstiles than by whatever fragments of painting and statuary survive. Yet the average American takes the artifacts of every day use for granted. He rarely appre ciates the well-designed objects and manages to ignore the ugly ones.

The Brooklyn Museum is shaking thousands of museumgoers out of their visual lethargy by exhibiting, as works of art, all kinds of functional things,...

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