PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Philadelphia Museum of Art will present a multimedia exhibition of works by Marcel Wanders (b. 1963), whose unique fusion of technology, artistry, and wit have established him as a leading figure in international design. Created specifically for the Museum, the installation will showcase the designer’s favorite projects over the last 20 years, including prototypes, personal editions, and objects never before exhibited.

Trained in The Netherlands as an industrial designer, Wanders’ work ranges from manufactured products and design-art to architecture and interior design. Using shifting video images, light, and sound, Marcel Wanders: Daydreams will dramatize the evolution of Wanders’ design process and philosophy with visual and aural storytelling. Several films will demonstrate how Wanders’ works are interrelated, the result of an exuberantly creative design mind in a multidisciplinary practice. A selection of what Wanders considers his most essential works will be on view, among them: "Knotted Chair," "Bell Big Ben Bianco," "Calvin," "Lucky One," "Extra Big Shadow Floor Lamp," "Moosehead," "Crochet Chair," "New Antiques Chair," and "Blow Lamp."

Throughout his career, Wanders has consistently challenged the premises of modernism through avant-garde works like “Knotted Chair” (1996), which marries handcraft and industrial technology; the chair is made from braided, epoxy-soaked aramide rope with a carbon-fiber core and hung in a frame to harden. He also created a series of vessels from sponges dipped in porcelain and then fired, part of the Moooi collection of which Wanders is art-director and co-owner. Among the other international design firms for which Wanders has produced work are B&B Italia, Bisazza, Poliform, Moroso, Flos, Boffi and Cappellini. Wanders was elected Designer of the Year 2005/2006 at the Elle Decoration International Design Awards and named ‘the design world’s favorite star’ by the Washington Post.

In recent years his work has expanded in scope, as he has taken on significant interior projects such as the restaurant ‘Thor’ at the Hotel on Rivington in New York, the Lute Suites, a row of 17th-century Amsterdam houses converted into hotel rooms, and the Mondrian South Beach hotel in Miami. Wanders has said: “I want to make work that looks to the future, but also back to the past. I want to use new techniques, but also reintroduce that lost quality of beauty.” A native of Boxtel, The Netherlands, Wanders was trained at the School of the Arts in Arnhem and elsewhere. In 1995 he opened his own design office in Amsterdam where he continues to practice.

In addition to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Wanders’ work has been exhibited and collected by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Central Museum in Utrecht, and the Museum of Decorative Arts Copenhagen.