Think your coat is a work of art? At the Boymans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, you can display your overcoat, raincoat or jacket for all to see in the Merry-Go-Round Coat Rack. Installed there last year by Dutch designer Wieki Somers, it just won this year's Dutch Design Award, and rightly so: rarely has something as mundane as a locker and so functional been such an occasion for competitive display.
To operate this carousel of temporarily discarded clothes, you put your coin in the slot, release a lock and hang your garment on the hook that comes free. Then you pull it up above your head with bungee ropes, secure it and lock the contraption back up, so that nobody can touch that coat of many colors until you have finished with your museum visit. Somers, who first made a splash with a tea pot in the form of a pig skull and accompanying water rat fur cozy, makes the exploded locker look like a cross between a laundry rail and a fair carousel. There are no plans yet to franchise the exhibitionist storage device, but I'm looking into it for the art museum I run in Cincinnati.
See Aaron's previous posts HERE. And check back next Thursday for Aaron's next post.
