iPhone and Coffee Pot Buried in Foundations of New Design Museum

Sep 18, 2012 9:47 am EDT

On the eve of the London Design Festival, Founder of the Design Museum Sir Terence Conran, Director Deyan Sudjic OBE and Chairman of the Trustees Luqman Arnold, joined by leading architects and designers, attended a ceremony today to celebrate the ground breaking of the new Design Museum at the former Commonwealth Institute on Kensington High Street.

To mark this historic moment in the development of the Design Museum, a time capsule was buried in the foundations of the new building. Leading figures in the world of design and architecture were invited to nominate an object to be included in the capsule. They include the museum's Design Circle members, Zaha Hadid, Paul Smith, Norman Foster and Cecil Balmond, as well as Sir Terence Conran and John Pawson.

"I am nominating an incandescent tungsten filament domestic lightbulb, the symbol of 'having a good idea,'" commented Thomas Heatherwick. "They are now being phased-out, but hopefully in a hundred years people will still be having good ideas even if the light source no longer looks anything like the lightbulbs we know of now!"

Contents of the Time Capsule

Cecil Balmond
European Union Flag
One Euro Coin
2p Stamp
USB containing images of jazz and blues music album covers, including John Coltrane and Bing Crosby

Sir Paul Smith
Isle of Man, London 2012 Olympic Games Stamps designed by Paul Smith

Sir Terence Conran
iPhone 4S
Tin of Anchovies
A good bottle of 2012 Burgundy

Deyan Sudjic
London 2012 Olympic Torch designed by BarberOsgerby
Badoiiing game, 2012 winner of the museum's Design Ventura competition for 13-16 year-old D&T students