Our point of view is uniquely informed by MoMA’s historical relationship to design.
In 1932, The Museum of Modern Art established the world’s first curatorial department devoted to architecture and design. MoMA has long recognized design’s important role in our culture alongside more traditional mediums like painting and sculpture.
Our selection process is unlike any other.
First, we assess a potential new product against our design filters, a set of 8 criteria that we use to ensure every item is a good fit with our vision of good design. Next, each proposed product is evaluated by MoMA’s curatorial department. Only those items that make it through these two steps successfully can become part of our assortment.
Our assortment, like the pieces in MoMA’s Architecture and Design Department, is item driven.
We identify a particular design object that epitomizes an important movement, collection, or designer rather than creating a complete catalog of every item of a movement, collection, or artist.