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Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture

Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture MoDA's collections provide an insight into domestic design and home life in Britain 1880-1960. MoDA is an accessible research collection.

We don’t have public exhibition galleries, but you are welcome to make an appointment to view collections up close in our Study Room. We welcome all kinds of Study Room visitors – students, researchers and members of the public. You don’t need to be associated with an academic institution. If you would like to find out more about any aspect of the collections you are very welcome to make an appoin

tment or find out more about appointments. To make an appointment or have a look at our collections visit our website: https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/

For other enquiries please call 020 8411 5244 or email [email protected]

Operating as usual

For  we are sharing 'Carafe' wallpaper designed by June Lyon and produced by John Line & Sons in 1956. The wallpaper is ...
07/12/2022

For we are sharing 'Carafe' wallpaper designed by June Lyon and produced by John Line & Sons in 1956. The wallpaper is featured in the Shire Publications Wallpaper book by Zoe Hendon. You can purchase the book from our online shop http://ow.ly/CXVy50LON8L. Postage is free and any orders before will receive a complimentary fridge magnet with the same design.

This 1921 notgeld shows  the 'funny person', also known as Hans Wurst leading the Schipperhöge parade, a traditional fes...
05/12/2022
1 Mark Lauenburg an der Elbe notgeld - Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MoDA)

This 1921 notgeld shows the 'funny person', also known as Hans Wurst leading the Schipperhöge parade, a traditional festival that still occurs in Lauenburg in January. Find out more about this and other notgeld here 👉 http://bit.ly/3OMSKFz

1 Mark Lauenburg an der Elbe notgeld Date 1921 Code CH/5/4/2/5/64 Level Item More details This notgeld is from Lauenburg an der Elbe and has the value of 1 Mark. It shows a joker performing some tricks in his colourful dress. A group of children is watching him. The inscription in German reads: 'die...

Language appears in many different forms and types within our collection. 'Sir Gibbie' written by the Scottish author Ge...
04/12/2022

Language appears in many different forms and types within our collection. 'Sir Gibbie' written by the Scottish author George MacDonald is notable for its use of Doric dialogue (a mid-North or Northeast Scottish dialect) http://bit.ly/3F8m5Hw

Essential reading for social occasions and parties, 'Manners and Rules of Good Society' by a Member of the Aristocracy, ...
02/12/2022

Essential reading for social occasions and parties, 'Manners and Rules of Good Society' by a Member of the Aristocracy, 1890 covers important etiquette for dinner parties and public balls. Read an extract here 👉 http://bit.ly/3VC8WM6

Peel back the layers of time with us through the wallpaper sandwich, which came to MoDA in 2003. The fragments were dona...
01/12/2022
wallpaper sandwich - Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MoDA)

Peel back the layers of time with us through the wallpaper sandwich, which came to MoDA in 2003. The fragments were donated to MoDA by a company who were renovating the dormitories at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge in 2001. The twelve fragments represent over two hundred years of history and range from the top layer of white 1980s woodchip paper to a late eighteenth century block printed, handmade paper.

In 2018 our Curator explored the role of wallpaper in crafting identity. Find out more on our website: http://bit.ly/3iaWsN5

One piece of 12-layered paper, and 12 individual layers of wallpaper dating from c.1780-1980 salvaged from a wall in Peterhouse College, Cambridge in 2001

This fine beard adorns the face of the father of the Silver Studio, Arthur Silver (1853-1896). The Silver Studio Designa...
30/11/2022

This fine beard adorns the face of the father of the Silver Studio, Arthur Silver (1853-1896).

The Silver Studio Designated collection forms the heart of MoDA, and you can find out more about it on our website http://bit.ly/3F4hbKz

Ever fancied travelling in time?  ! This is a timeline visualisation of our collections created for a research project  ...
29/11/2022

Ever fancied travelling in time? ! This is a timeline visualisation of our collections created for a research project -
find out all about it here 👉 http://bit.ly/3VdPsOl

For the first theme of  week, here is a map showing the location of new 'garden flats'  built in  in 1938 from a promoti...
28/11/2022

For the first theme of week, here is a map showing the location of new 'garden flats' built in in 1938 from a promotional leaflet. http://bit.ly/3u6wOvN

Discover how you can explore our collections 👉 http://bit.ly/3iiLCou

MoDA's Petal Power publication explores the hand-drawn and painted textile designs produced by women designers at the Si...
27/11/2022

MoDA's Petal Power publication explores the hand-drawn and painted textile designs produced by women designers at the Silver Studio in inter-war England. It also maps out the printed floral trends of the time. http://ow.ly/bnpb50LNFGf

Featuring 'Fifitestyle' for . This publication draws on MoDA's collections of wallpapers, textiles and magazines to show...
27/11/2022

Featuring 'Fifitestyle' for . This publication draws on MoDA's collections of wallpapers, textiles and magazines to show the choices available to consumers decorating their homes in the 1950s. Also in the Style Guide series . Buy here http://ow.ly/2IeZ50LNeqr

Another calendar to share, this time from the Australian company Hello Sunday. 12 Silver Studio designs are featured, in...
23/11/2022
Medium Calendar-Silver Studio

Another calendar to share, this time from the Australian company Hello Sunday. 12 Silver Studio designs are featured, including this textile design of tiger lilies and orchids. You can buy here http://ow.ly/PSqy50LM27O Note that this is available in various formats and holidays are AUS/NZ.

The Silver Studio was one of the most influential textile design studios from 1880 to 1950 and most of this collection is now housed at the Museum of Design and Architecture in London (MoDA). This calendar contains 12 of it's most perennially favourite images Unique double hung format with full page...

Featured as  is a Katagami from MoDA's collections. Katagami are Japanese stencils and these were mainly used for printi...
22/11/2022

Featured as is a Katagami from MoDA's collections. Katagami are Japanese stencils and these were mainly used for printing onto fabric, particularly kimono. This one features chrysanthemums, often associated with autumn and is also in the 2023 Calendar by Flame Tree Publishing. You can purchase one here Buy here http://ow.ly/svQ950LJwMw

What does it mean to talk about 'queering home'? This episode of our  with Matt Cook Birkbeck, University of London and ...
09/11/2022
S3, Episode 1: Q***ring Home - Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MoDA)

What does it mean to talk about 'queering home'? This episode of our with Matt Cook Birkbeck, University of London and Andrew Gordon-Murray Western Sydney University considers how ***r homes have contested or conformed to traditional definitions.

In this episode, MoDA's Curator Ana Baeza Ruiz talks to historians Matt Cook from Birkbeck, University of London, and Andrew Gordon-Murray from Western Sydney University in Australia about queering the idea of home,

This episode of our  tops the charts for most downloads in the past year! Huge thanks to Dr. Aimi Hamraie -assistant pro...
07/11/2022
S3, Episode 6: Embodying Home - Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MoDA)

This episode of our tops the charts for most downloads in the past year! Huge thanks to Dr. Aimi Hamraie -
assistant professor of Medicine, Health and Society at
Vanderbilt University, and host of Contra* a podcast on
disability design justice - and Ellen Clifford - a disabled
activist with Disabled People Against Cuts in the U.K., for great discussion of how design makes assumptions about who uses a space & about what bodies can do.

Domestic design rests on assumptions about who lives and uses that space, about what our bodies can do, how our bodies think, move and feel. Ana Baeza Ruiz is joined by Aimi Hamraie, assistant professor of Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University, and Ellen Clifford, disabled activist a...

Wallpaper History - Talk and Tour | National Trust
07/10/2022
Wallpaper History - Talk and Tour | National Trust

Wallpaper History - Talk and Tour | National Trust

Join us for an evening of wallpaper history with a talk from conservator Dr Phillippa Mapes and a tour of the house from one of our resident guides.

We are excited to share Nobody's Child Silver Studio Collection. We love how the Silver Studio designs look on these bea...
01/08/2022
Nobody's Child on Instagram: "Introducing the Silver Studio Collection, our latest collaboration with an incredible design practice. Founded in 1880, the Silver Studio created over 20,000 designs in the textiles and wallpaper industry. To put it...

We are excited to share Nobody's Child Silver Studio Collection. We love how the Silver Studio designs look on these beautiful flowing dresses.

Nobody's Child shared a post on Instagram: "Introducing the Silver Studio Collection, our latest collaboration with an incredible design practice. Founded in 1880, the Silver Studio created over 20,000 designs in the textiles and wallpaper industry. To put it lightly, the studio is iconic, so we had...

Head over to Twitter https://twitter.com/HouseHistoryHr at 7pm this evening. Jill Stewart and MoDA's Zoe Hendon discuss ...
21/07/2022

Head over to Twitter https://twitter.com/HouseHistoryHr at 7pm this evening. Jill Stewart and MoDA's Zoe Hendon discuss house histories in Hendon Middlesex University

We're going to RHS Chelsea Flower Show  for  today as the natural world is a great inspiration for wallpaper designs, wi...
25/05/2022

We're going to RHS Chelsea Flower Show for today as the natural world is a great inspiration for wallpaper designs, with many using the idea of bringing the outside into homes. Perhaps the most well-known examples of this are the Arts and Crafts designs of William Morris. One of the gold-medal-winning Show Gardens at this year's brings this idea full circle, with a garden based on two of William Morris's designs - 'Trellis' and 'Willow Bough' brought to life by Ruth Willmott Associates sponsored by William Morris & Co
Take a look at those designs here and those of Morris's contemporary Arthur Silver of The Silver Studio. Are there particular garden favourites that you think would make good wallpaper designs - a favourite flower or shapely plant leaf?

Today's  post showcases an Association of Independent Museums  funded conservation project focused on original Art Nouve...
18/05/2022
Art Nouveau Stencilled wallcoverings (2019) - Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MoDA)

Today's post showcases an Association of Independent Museums funded conservation project focused on original Art Nouveau stencilled wallcoverings on paper, grasspaper and textile from our Silver Studio Collection. These stencilled materials were made in the 1890s. They were made by the designers who worked for the Silver Studio who were informed by stencilling techniques from Japan.

This conservation work followed on from a major Arts Council England research project called Katagami In Practice that we conducted between 2016 and 2018 looking at our collection of Japanese Katagmai stencils. We believe the stencilled materials within this conservation project were made in response to those original Japanese examples. They demonstrate the Silver Studio’s engagement with Japanese influences in their development of British Art Nouveau.

https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/2019/09/16/stencil-conservation-completed/

Fifty six important stencilled textiles, grasspapers and wallcoverings from MoDA’s Silver Studio Collection are now available to students and researchers, following the completion of a major conservation project. We are grateful for the support of the Association of Independent Museums (AIM) who m...

Only 12 new English Heritage blue plaques are unveiled each year, and this month saw one unveiled on the designer Enid M...
28/04/2022
Enid Marx - Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MoDA)

Only 12 new English Heritage blue plaques are unveiled each year, and this month saw one unveiled on the designer Enid Marx’s former home at 39 Thornhill Square where she lived with her life partner Margaret Lambeth. She created patterns, book covers, stamps, illustrations and more, and was a contemporary of and ,

To find out more about our Enid Marx collection visit https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/stories/enid-marx/ and watch the video as Lotte Beatrix explores why Enid Marx deserves a higher profile and the recognition that the blue plaque will hopefully help to bring.


1 d

Enid Marx (1902-1998) made an amazing body of work, and had an unusually long career as a commercial designer. Lotte Beatrix Crawford talked to Jane Audas about Marx's life and work. [Video]

Sharing another podcast episode for .  In Home Dis(Comforts)    delve into MoDA's wallpaper and ephemera collection to e...
08/03/2022
Episode 3: Home (Dis)Comforts - Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MoDA)

Sharing another podcast episode for . In Home Dis(Comforts) delve into MoDA's wallpaper and ephemera collection to explore the relationships between domestic spaces, gender and mental health. http://ow.ly/5mwi50IbWxs

What if you woke up one day and your home was the same but a third smaller? In this episode, Ana Baeza, MoDA's Curator, discusses with Nicky Lambert (Middlesex University) and Paula Chambers (Leeds Art University) how our homes can feel uncanny, uncomfortable and unsafe, and how, historically, this....

Gendered narratives is a resource on our website which explores how gender has been constructed through popular images, ...
08/03/2022

Gendered narratives is a resource on our website which explores how gender has been constructed through popular images, using fashion magazines, catalogues, books and ephemera. https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/gender/

On  we take a look back to our podcast  and the episode Home Work/House Work with  and . Have a listen http://ow.ly/SCQ3...
08/03/2022

On we take a look back to our podcast and the episode Home Work/House Work with and . Have a listen http://ow.ly/SCQ350IbOga

Are you enjoying the early signs of spring?  is this dress print design of jonquil flowers by Winifred Mold in 1931. The...
03/03/2022

Are you enjoying the early signs of spring? is this dress print design of jonquil flowers by Winifred Mold in 1931. The design is featured in 'Petal Power' which explores the work of women designers at the Silver Studio of Design. You can purchase the publication here http://ow.ly/auz650I99SL

The  is this  (japanese stencil). The katagami designs have great significance within Japanese culture. This one, with p...
14/02/2022

The is this (japanese stencil). The katagami designs have great significance within Japanese culture. This one, with pine trees and grain, symbolises longevity. It is also featured in this 2022 calendar which you can buy here http://ow.ly/10Vl50HUk9J

Seasonal greetings from all of us at MoDA. We are now closed and will reopen on 4th January. We look forward to your enq...
17/12/2021

Seasonal greetings from all of us at MoDA. We are now closed and will reopen on 4th January. We look forward to your enquiries and at the moment you can still book an appointment for next year https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/appointments/.

There's still time to buy Christmas gifts from our online shop. Our publications cover a range of topics:           Buy ...
12/12/2021

There's still time to buy Christmas gifts from our online shop. Our publications cover a range of topics: Buy here http://ow.ly/6BtF50H80l8

modamuseum 𝗡𝗲𝘄  𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲! In EmbodyingHome Ana Baeza Ruiz talks to Dr. Aimi Hamraie -assistant professor of Medicine, Hea...
10/12/2021

modamuseum 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲! In Embodying
Home Ana Baeza Ruiz talks to Dr. Aimi Hamraie -
assistant professor of Medicine, Health and Society at
Vanderbilt University, and host of Contra* a podcast on
disability design justice - and Ellen Clifford - a disabled
activist with Disabled People Against Cuts in the U.K.
and author of The War on Disabled People: Capitalism
Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe -
about what homes do to our bodies and to what extent
their design can accommodate experiences of
impairment and illness. https://bit.ly/39lO1Hc


Also available in our series of style guides: Turn of the Century Style, Fiftiestyle, Sixtiestyle, Seventies Style. Buy ...
28/11/2021

Also available in our series of style guides: Turn of the Century Style, Fiftiestyle, Sixtiestyle, Seventies Style. Buy individually for £9.99 or a full set of 5 for £39.96. http://ow.ly/pXj750GXGVw

Featured for  is one of our Style Guides Fiftiestyle. It's a fascinating and colourful guide to all aspects of decoratio...
28/11/2021

Featured for is one of our Style Guides Fiftiestyle. It's a fascinating and colourful guide to all aspects of decoration and design in the 1950s home. http://ow.ly/c7ib50GXGMu culture

𝗡𝗲𝘄  𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲! In Home Alone Ana Baeza Ruiz , Dr Anastasia Christou of Middlesex University London - School of Law  & Kat...
26/11/2021

𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲! In Home Alone Ana Baeza Ruiz , Dr Anastasia Christou of Middlesex University London - School of Law & Kate Bloor, founder of Lyme Research-Uk talk about one of the greatest public health issues of our age. What does it mean to experience loneliness at home, and how have these experiences been aggravated by the pandemic? https://bit.ly/39lO1Hc

𝗡𝗲𝘄  𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲! In Home Unmaking Ana Baeza talks to Dr Mel Nowicki, senior lecturer in urban geography Oxford Brookes Univ...
12/11/2021

𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲! In Home Unmaking Ana Baeza talks to Dr Mel Nowicki, senior lecturer in urban geography Oxford Brookes University & Dr Ella Harris, Leverhulme early career fellow Birkbeck, University of London about home unmaking, challenging the idea of , and considering what happens when homes are undone, permanently or temporarily damaged or even destroyed? https://bit.ly/39lO1Hc

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Our Story

The Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MoDA) developed from a number of collections acquired by Middlesex University between the late 1960s and the 1990s. The first and most important of these was the Silver Studio Collection, which was given to what was then the Hornsey College of Art in 1966.

MoDA is part of Middlesex University. We are an accessible research collection and we welcome students, researchers and members of the public by appointment. Find out more here: https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/visit-us/about-appointments/

Our mission is to preserve and hold in trust for society our internationally important collections relating to British domestic design and architecture 1870-1960. MoDA is committed to exploring the collections with our audiences, co-creating knowledge and understanding and using the collections to inspire creativity. We support and challenge audiences to learn with and from the collections, to demonstrate their learning in varied ways, and to feed that knowledge back into a shared knowledge base. For other enquiries visit https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/visit-us/contact-us/ or please call 020 8411 5244 or email [email protected] Read more about MoDA at https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/

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Comments

We're going to RHS Chelsea Flower Show for today as the natural world is a great inspiration for wallpaper designs, with many using the idea of bringing the outside into homes. Perhaps the most well-known examples of this are the Arts and Crafts designs of William Morris. One of the gold-medal-winning Show Gardens at this year's brings this idea full circle, with a garden based on two of William Morris's designs - 'Trellis' and 'Willow Bough' brought to life by Ruth Willmott Associates sponsored by William Morris & Co
Take a look at those designs here and those of Morris's contemporary Arthur Silver of The Silver Studio. Are there particular garden favourites that you think would make good wallpaper designs - a favourite flower or shapely plant leaf?

Today's post showcases an Association of Independent Museums funded conservation project focused on original Art Nouveau stencilled wallcoverings on paper, grasspaper and textile from our Silver Studio Collection. These stencilled materials were made in the 1890s. They were made by the designers who worked for the Silver Studio who were informed by stencilling techniques from Japan.

This conservation work followed on from a major Arts Council England research project called Katagami In Practice that we conducted between 2016 and 2018 looking at our collection of Japanese Katagmai stencils. We believe the stencilled materials within this conservation project were made in response to those original Japanese examples. They demonstrate the Silver Studio’s engagement with Japanese influences in their development of British Art Nouveau.

https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/2019/09/16/stencil-conservation-completed/

Only 12 new English Heritage blue plaques are unveiled each year, and this month saw one unveiled on the designer Enid Marx’s former home at 39 Thornhill Square where she lived with her life partner Margaret Lambeth. She created patterns, book covers, stamps, illustrations and more, and was a contemporary of and ,

To find out more about our Enid Marx collection visit https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/stories/enid-marx/ and watch the video as Lotte Beatrix explores why Enid Marx deserves a higher profile and the recognition that the blue plaque will hopefully help to bring.


1 d
A selection of spring designs which are featured in our latest newsletter: https://preview.mailerlite.com/q5n6j8e2g2. You can subscribe to receive regular updates here https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/i2k2a8
Sharing another podcast episode for . In Home Dis(Comforts) delve into MoDA's wallpaper and ephemera collection to explore the relationships between domestic spaces, gender and mental health. http://ow.ly/5mwi50IbWxs
Gendered narratives is a resource on our website which explores how gender has been constructed through popular images, using fashion magazines, catalogues, books and ephemera. https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/gender/
On we take a look back to our podcast and the episode Home Work/House Work with and . Have a listen http://ow.ly/SCQ350IbOga
Are you enjoying the early signs of spring? is this dress print design of jonquil flowers by Winifred Mold in 1931. The design is featured in 'Petal Power' which explores the work of women designers at the Silver Studio of Design. You can purchase the publication here http://ow.ly/auz650I99SL
The is this (japanese stencil). The katagami designs have great significance within Japanese culture. This one, with pine trees and grain, symbolises longevity. It is also featured in this 2022 calendar which you can buy here http://ow.ly/10Vl50HUk9J
Happy New Year! Keep on track with important dates and events during 2022 with our calendar featuring Katagami (Japanese Stencils) from our collections. Postage is free! https://onlinestore.mdx.ac.uk/product-catalogue/museum-of-domestic-design-architecture/publications-and-merchandise/moda-calendar-2022
Seasonal greetings from all of us at MoDA. We are now closed and will reopen on 4th January. We look forward to your enquiries and at the moment you can still book an appointment for next year https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/appointments/.
x

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