EXHIBITION DESIGN: Rome, Or the Density of the Site

Spring 2019 College of Design Rome Program Exhibition

Designer and Installer, with Jake Spangler

The College of Design presents a semi-annual exhibition in Ames, IA of work student produced during its Rome Program. For the Fall 2019 exhibition, a variety of media were organized thematically through out the space. Sketchbooks containing the student’s observations from the semester were displayed on a table at the entrance. Process work and influential images throughout the semester—such as posters from the lecture series—were located on the edge walls of the gallery. In the central space, the final projects were presented on suspended panels, hung with binder clips above floor-based text enumerating key themes explored in the program. Finally, films created by the students exploring the urban and architectural histories of Roman neighborhoods were screened. The design of the exhibition was influenced by the Rationalist exhibition design of Libera and De Renzi, itself drawing from Russian Constructivism. The floating planes overlapping the projection screen and floor based text immersed and encompassed the viewer in the intellectual environment of the semester’s work.