The de facto attics for American design have been university libraries, private European museums, corporate collections, foundations, government institutions and the Library of Congress, to which Charles and Ray Eames donated their papers, drawings and photographic images.
The pubs he finds are either lifeless "museum pieces," corporate sports bars with TV screens or shameless fakes hawking manufactured nostalgia.
"There is no doubt that fashion has become a big winner for cultural institutions," said Ms. de Pont, who lists the museum's corporate sponsors and individual donors on the site.
The gig: Bob Rogers, 64, is founder and chief creative officer of BRC Imagination Arts, a design and production company that creates what it dubs "visitor experiences," including theme park attractions, museum displays, corporate tours and world expo pavilions.
But now company museums are going mainstream.A corporate museum is a shrewd way to bolster a brand.
She wrote about libraries and skyscrapers, art museums and corporate headquarters, and this being New York, she also did battle over the city's twinkling residential buildings.
David Resnicow, president of Resnicow Schroeder, a consultant that matches museums and corporate sponsors, said Mr. Messier's charitable involvement was crucial to a French company trying to establish itself as a global company.
At one end of the architectural spectrum are signature shape-makers such as Frank Gehry, who drapes his bent-metal forms around concert halls, museums, and corporate headquarters so that his personality is more obvious than a building's function.
Mr. Gunther and his colleagues, John Rothenberg and Justin Manor, are graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and work at the same Boston design firm, where they create what they call dynamic interactive installations for museums and corporate clients.
Ban, who has built museums, mansions, corporate headquarters, and a golf-course clubhouse in South Korea, takes pleasure in distinguishing himself from his peers, and in pointing up their excesses: not much of their work could fit into a kit that comprises eleven elements (Paper Tube A, Paper Tube B, plastic peg), including the bag.
