Carnegie Museum of Art swaps gift shop for updated design store
After five years of dreaming, 10 months of designing and planning and three months of renovation, the CMOA Design Store opens Sept. 6 in the lobby of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Oakland.
It's not just a place to buy postcards and souvenir mugs.
With the help of the local architectural studio Springboard Designs and retail consultant Karen Peter, the museum shop has been reinvented as a store filled with fresh, contemporary, artful jewelry, home furnishings, books, toys and games for children and eye-catching fashion and home accessories.
“I've been thinking about this since I got here five years ago,” says Lynn Zelevansky, the Henry J. Heinz II director of Carnegie Museum of Art. “I really wanted something stylish and really fun, and Pittsburgh doesn't have another design store. I hope people will embrace it for that reason.”
The 1,000-square-foot shop hasn't moved. It's still between the entrance doors and the ticket desks in the Museum of Art's Forbes Avenue lobby.
Though it occupies the same amount of space, the display cases and shelves have been reconfigured to make it easier to browse and linger.
One of two seating areas allows kids to check out books and toys.
Another, due for completion in October, is geared more toward adult shoppers, with Eero Saarinen-style chairs and tables.
“I have been wanting to make the museum more welcoming, a place where you can spend time, relax, eat and buy things,” Zelevansky says.
Enter the shop and you will find wonderful things.
Some are by artists whose work cannot be found elsewhere in Pittsburgh, such as a tall, six-sided aluminum vase ($132) created by British designer Tom Dixon, or the curvaceous, modernist, black-and-white ceramic salt and pepper shakers ($31) designed by Eva Zeisel.
Others may be less exclusive, but no less alluring:
• A whimsical cartoon-cat-shaped bottle opener ($22) ready to use its sharp teeth to open your craft beer
• Hand-crafted sterling silver necklaces from Pyrrha ($100 to $300), with pendants inspired by 18th- and 19th-century wax seals
• Chunky, gold-plated Addison Weeks cuff bracelets ($300), studded with semi-precious stones
• Tiny, but colorful resin studs ($7)
“I tried to look for interesting things, kind of like a gallery,” Peter says. “I tried to span price ranges.”
Doting parents and grandparents and their small charges have not been overlooked. One wall is devoted to items for babies, preschoolers and the over-5 crowd:
• A set of crayons and a pliable place mat ($27.50) you can roll up and stash in your briefcase or diaper bag; after the designs on the place mat are colored, it can be washed in the dishwasher and reused.
• The Junior Architect Wonderboard ($16.50) that contains 150 magnetized architectural elements and a metal board for your budding Frank Gehry or Henry Hornbostel to piece together skyscrapers and pillared palaces
• 10 precut paper airplanes ($14.95) of varying design, ready for assembly
During the planning process, Zelevansky used two words to describe the shop she hoped to create.
“The words were ‘elegant' and ‘fun',” Peter says. “Now that I look around, I think we did it.”
And yes, you can still buy a postcard (75 cents to $1), a coffee mug ($4.75) or a refrigerator magnet ($5).
The CMOA Design Store is open during museum hours: from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays; until 8 p.m. Thursdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.
Details: 412-622-3131 or www.cmoa.org
Alice T. Carter is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-320-7808, acarter@tribweb.com or via Twitter @ATCarter_Trib.
