Rice University students have developed a modular, transparent art storage design that is revolutionary, says Wynne Phelan, Conservation Director of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), who has adopted this new system, according to an October 19 report by the Houston Chronicle.
This unique design replaces wood crates and cardboard boxes - which prevent museum staff from seeing the artworks inside – thus requiring additional unpacking and repacking of delicate objects; this process also emits harmful acids that can be detrimental to all types of media used by artist.
"This adds an incredible freedom of visiting experience to a museum," Phelan said. "If you don't have things in crates and cardboard boxes or closed cases, there is something to show, and you don't have to handle the artwork."
The 4 Rice University students who developed the system are participants in the inaugural Engineering and Design for Art and Artifact Conservation program at Rice's Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen.
This system, which combines an easily-assembled armature of metal rods and Plexiglas windows, enables conservators to customize how they secure each object.
The Rice students, who were chosen from more than 30 applicants, include: Caleb Brown, a bioengineering and visual-and-dramatic arts major; Rhodes Coffey, a mechanical engineering major; Kristi Day, a civil engineering major; and Nicole Garcia, a chemical engineering major.
These 4 students began the creative process by touring the MFAH's storage facilities, discussing art conservation with Phelan and Bakke, and shadowing MFAH art handlers to observe how artworks are transported, stored and repacked.
Eventually, the class presented drawings of its best 5 ideas for a new system to the MFAH before implementing the design that was simplest to execute and could be used by anyone, according to Rice lecturer Matthew Wettergreen, who taught the intensive, 9-week summer course.
Phelan, who was "blown away" by the students' work, later said, "They fully understood what the mission of the housing for artworks is. To decrease handling of actual artwork, to make it visible, to make (the storage unit) of materials that were not dangerous to works of art, and to be easy to assemble and modular. I mean, this is a quite demanding task, and the design aspect that they came up with was, I think, pitch perfect."
Miranda Lash, New Orleans Museum of Art curator, said she would welcome a storage system that let her examine artworks "without making it a production."
"It always makes a difference for me when the work is way too large for one person to handle or to move," she said. "The way it's stored can be crucial because if it's not immediately accessible to me to look at by myself, then it does involve getting a preparator and making appointments to look at it."