Could PNCA's takeover of MCC create a design museum?

As first reported by D.K. Row in The Oregonian last Wednesday, the Museum of Contemporary Craft and the Pacific Northwest College of Art have agreed to incorporate the museum into the school. 

The MCC was feeling a financial pinch after first moving to the DeSoto building on the North Park Blocks and then facing the sagged economy. PNCA, meanwhile, has been on a roll in the last year or two, acquiring the 511 Broadway building and ownership of its previously rented Pearl District home as well as starting up the Ford Institute for Visual Education with a string of noteworthy speakers through its accompanying "Idea Studios".

Although it's too soon to know what form the MCC will take under PNCA's leadership, what it will be called and how exactly its exhibits might differ, or if it will be there at all in a recognizable form. But initially, PNCA's influence seems to make design a greater part of the Museum of Contemporary Craft.

There have already been behind-the-scenes efforts by a small group of design industry people to create a design museum of its own in Portland. What if those forces began to put their support behind a newly branded, say, Museum of Craft & Design, a Design & Craft museum, or something to that effect?

Multidisciplinary design firm Ziba recently led the Oregon College of Art & Craft through a re-branding in which they challenged the school to think about and re-define what craft really means in the early 21st century. Is it making blankets and pottery by hand, or using NASA software to shape buildings out of titanium? Or both? These are the kinds of curatorial questions a reborn museum might be able to ask.

In fairness, though, much of this sort of thing the MCC was already doing. The recent exhibit "Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects" is one example. But making a sculpture out of black combs or used lipsticks isn't super-rigorous design exhibition, though. PNCA, with friends like Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works and Wieden + Kennedy's John Jay, could take things a step further.

Yet one also wouldn't want to lost the traditional craft aspect of the museum completely either, however. I loved another show that just concluded yesterday: "The Ceramics of Gertrud & Otto Natzler".

Hopefully this announcement won't be a sad day for MCC as the first step toward a fire sale. I'm still optimistic that won't be the case. Even so, it's another smart move by PNCA regardless, especially given that move-in to the 511 building won't come for a few years.

Comments

[dennis]

Sounds like a good move forward for both sides. I like this little museum and was hoping they would figure a way to survive. Linking up with a college is usually a good way.