Movers and shakers

In January, the City of Helsinki appointed its latest Chief Design Officer: Hanna Harris. Currently the director at Archinfo Finland and the former programme director for Helsinki Design Week and the Finnish Institute in London, she is the second CDO for the Finnish capital since it inaugurated the program (the first of its kind in the world) in 2016. “My goal,” says Harris, “is to create wide-ranging cooperation and to work effectively to build an even better Helsinki.”

In February, Michigan museum The Henry Ford acquired the extensive product design archive of the late American architect Michael Graves. “In its entirety, the Michael Graves Design product archive tells a 39-year history of art, culture and commerce,” says president and CEO Patricia Mooradian. The collection comprises over 2,500 models, prototypes, samples and finished projects for such companies as Disney, Alessi, Duravit and Dornbracht.

Soon after, London’s Serpentine Galleries announced that Johannesburg-based studio Counterspace will design the 2020 Serpentine Pavilion. Sumayya Vally, Amina Kaskar and Sarah de Villiers (who lead the all-female studio) will be the youngest architects to develop the structure, which will coincide with the institution’s 50th anniversary and the 20th year of the pavilion program. “The pavilion is itself conceived as an event — the coming together of a variety of forms from across London,” Vally said of the proposal.