Runs 9-14 as full page interior feature per dss

2col   Piranesi 11  (cropped to detail)

Settee (detail shown) in the Egyptian taste from the Egyptian Room, Duchess Street, London, designed by Thomas Hope (Scottish, b Amsterdam, 1769–1831), circa 1802, ebonized and gilt beech/bronze and gilt brass mounts, silk damask. The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.

2col  Piranesi 8

Doncaster Race Cup of 1828, manufactured by Rebecca Emes and Edward Barnard (English, active 1804–circa 1829) after a design by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italian, 1720–1778), silver gilt. Leeds City Council, Arts and Heritage, Temple Newsam House.

2col  Piranesi 7

Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “Chimneypiece for John Hope,” circa 1767, marble. The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

1 ½ col  Piranesi 10

Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “The Drawbridge, Plate VII” from the series “Carceri,” 1761, etching on laid paper. Lent by The Arthur Ross Foundation. —Matt Flynn photo

1½ col  Piranesi 14

Giovanni Battista Piranesi, furniture including a side table designed for Cardinal Rezzonico, from Diverse Maniere, 1769, etching on off-white laid paper. Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Cooper-Hewitt Branch. —Matt Flynn photo

FOR 9/14

‘PIRANESI AS DESIGNER’ OPENS AT COOPER-HEWITT IN NYC w/5 cuts, run as 1 page

avv/gs set 8/23 #710159

NEW YORK CITY — Opening September 14, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, will present “Piranesi as Designer,” the first museum exhibition to show Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s full range and influence as a designer of architecture, interiors and furnishings.

Through more than 100 etchings, original drawings and decorative arts objects, the exhibition will examine Piranesi’s concept of modern design and demonstrate his ongoing influence on architects and designers today, with featured work by Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Daniel Libeskind, Robert A.M. Stern, and Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.

Organized by Professor Sarah Lawrence, director of Cooper-Hewitt’s master’s program in the history of decorative arts and design, and John Wilton-Ely, professor emeritus at the University of Hull in England, “Piranesi as Designer” will be on view in the first-floor galleries of the museum through January 20.

Renowned as one of the finest printmakers of the Eighteenth Century, Piranesi (Italian, 1720–1778) is best known for his etched views of Rome and its antiquities, as well as for his highly influential suite, “The Carcere” or “Imaginary Prisons.”

Trained as an architect, Piranesi revolutionized architecture and design through his combination of decorative elements and ornamental motifs from the Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman styles; yet his work as the designer of interiors and furnishings has been largely uncelebrated. This exhibition will explore the far-reaching impact of Piranesi’s modernist style on his Eighteenth Century contemporaries, such as Robert Adam, Francois-Joseph Belanger and Etienne-Louis Boullee, as well as on leading architects today.

“This landmark exhibition provides a major reassessment of Piranesi as a radical design reformer and offers an unprecedented display of the vast range of his creative work,” said director Paul Warwick Thompson.

Beginning with Piranesi’s formative years in Venice, the exhibition will trace his work as a designer in various media through his final years in Rome. On view in the first and second galleries will be Piranesi’s topographic studies of ancient Rome, architectural fantasies, archaeological investigations and drawings of significant architectural commissions that allowed Piranesi to give form to his new modes of expression. From preliminary sketches to highly finished pieces, the works reveal Piranesi’s creative process and design philosophy.

The central gallery of the exhibition will bring together Piranesi’s vast work as a designer of interiors, mantels, carriage works, chimney pieces and furnishings, including commodes, tables, chairs, candlestands, mirrors, sconces, vases, urns, teapots and coffee pots.

Several of Piranesi’s designs for interiors will debut in the United States in this exhibition, including the 1828 Doncaster Race Cup, after Piranesi’s design; a clock by Thomas Hope; and two works from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: the Rezzonico gilt side table, one of his only surviving pieces of furniture, and a marble chimneypiece, commissioned by collector John Hope.

A highlight of the exhibition will be a group of Piranesi’s drawings and prints of designs for architecture and the decorative arts from Copper-Hewitt’s permanent collection, the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University (New York) and the Morgan Library and Museum (New York), which will be shown together for the first time with corresponding 3-D objects produced after his designs.

The final gallery of the exhibition will demonstrate how Piranesi’s modernist design theory and practice still resonate with architects and designers centuries later. Piranesi’s “Imaginary Prisons” suite, in which the viewer’s eye is forced on a restless journey through a series of spatial ambiguities and visual paradoxes, will be juxtaposed with drawings by architects who use similar complex visual devices to stimulate the interest and imagination of the viewer, such as Eisenman’s Cardinals Stadium in Arizona and Libeskind’s “Micromega” series.

Examples of Piranesi’s pioneering blend of architectural elements will be presented alongside drawings by contemporary architects who also mix and borrow ornamentation from various schools, such as Graves’ design for the Public Library in Denver and Venturi and Scott Brown’s design for the Chapel, Episcopal Academy in Pennsylvania. The exhibition will also feature videos with these architects, in which they discuss how their work and aesthetic continue to foster the design ideals put forth by the Eighteenth Century Italian designer.

Cooper-Hewitt will publish a 200-page, full-color catalog with essays by exhibition organizers Lawrence and Wilton-Ely, in addition to contributions from leading Piranesi scholars and contemporary architects and designers.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a variety of programs, including a symposium, which will build on the exhibition’s themes.

Following its debut at Cooper-Hewitt, “Piranesi as Designer” will travel to the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, the Netherlands.

Cooper-Hewitt is at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue. For information, 212-849-8400 or www.cooperhewitt.org.