Tag Archives: National Endowment for the Humanities

History in a box: Unpacking Art Center’s industrial design photography collections for the world

Over 100,000 photographs, 2,000 films and videos and 500 linear feet of print materials—all documenting aspects of American design history—make the Art Center Archives a treasure trove for exploration by scholars, faculty, students and the general public. But making those materials accessible to a world beyond campus raises challenging questions: Who decides what to preserve first? Once digitized, where should a collection live online? How does one prepare for inevitable changes in technology?

To begin tackling questions like these—and to start the process of bringing the Art Center Archives to the world—the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2013 awarded the College a prestigious grant to launch a pilot project to digitize, preserve and make accessible a portion of Art Center’s industrial design collection. As the project wraps up one year later, Bob Dirig shares his thoughts about collaboration, unexpected outcomes and the future of the College as a locus of art and design scholarship.

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Art Center Receives NEH Grant to Preserve Industrial Design History

From computers to sports cars to space capsules, America’s infatuation with invention has fueled industrial design. Now a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is invigorating Art Center’s efforts to preserve the College’s rich history of industrial design images and materials.

Art Center students in 1937

Students working on an architectural model of a future Art Center campus in a project taught by Kem Weber. Gift of Irene Vermeers (PHOT 1937). Photography by Irene Vermeers.

According to College Archivist Robert Dirig, the grant will support a pilot project to digitize, preserve and make accessible a portion of Art Center’s collection of photographs, film and print materials documenting American industrial design education over an 80-year period.

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