The AERO Bench is on exhibition at the Design Museum of Barcelona

18.01.2022 | Education

The Museu del Disseny de Barcelona opened its doors to the public seven years ago. That's less than a decade, but long enough to need a paint job. And that is what the Design Museum of Barcelona has done, giving a new look to its permanent exhibition: it has moved it to a new, much more accessible room; it has incorporated new, much more inclusive formats; and it has added around a hundred new pieces, among them the AERO Bench that Lievore Altherr Molina designed for Sellex.

Under the title 'Common Objects. Local stories, global discussions' and curated by the historian and designer Oriol Pibernat, the exhibition seeks to highlight the enormous social, aesthetic and cultural impact of design, capable of transforming common objects into exemplary and culturally relevant pieces.

The installation is divided into four sections through which it tries to explain why design has been essential in the transformation of society. The first of these, called “Itinerary. Local stories, 1930-2020', takes a chronological journey through the history of local design, from 1930 to the present day. It is in this section that the AERO Bench is exhibited, specifically in the section 'International Design Icons', which highlights the 30 pieces from the collection that have stood out for their international tour.

AERO at the permanent exhibition of the Design Museum of Barcelona

The dimensions of the AERO Bench in relation to the room and the number of objects on display (more than 300) did not allow the complete model to be shown. Moreover, the AERO Bench is not only an exhibition piece within the Museum, as it is also installed as a waiting seat in some of the halls of the museum itself. For this reason, it was decided to display it in the exhibition through two pieces in which the extruded section, the ingenious design and the constructive quality can be appreciated, as well as several photographs from the catalogue.

The other three sections that complement the permanent exhibition are 'Parliament. Global discussions', 'Variable exhibitions' and 'The design of the city'.

20 years providing design

Four lustrums have passed since Lievore Altherr Molina designed what has become our most international bench. The studio formed by Alberto Lievore, Jeannette Altherr and Manel Molina and based in Barcelona, knew how to give shape to what we had conceived in our minds: an elegant but visually light bench, not too austere but resistant. And they hit the nail on the head.

The AERO Bench in Pier 79 in New York (USA)

The result was a versatile seat with an extruded aluminium shell capable of withstanding the passage of time and adverse weather conditions. Since then, the AERO Bench has been on the road ever since, equipping waiting rooms all over the world. In hospitals, funeral homes, passenger terminals, auditoriums, courthouses... and even museums.

Available in different versions (with legs or wall hanging, with or without tables...) and in different sizes (from 2 to 7 seaters), the AERO Bench continues to bring design wherever it goes.