Just happened to read an email newsletter from the New York Times called Urbanite Weekend: Weird Science – featuring the Design Life Now Triennial that opened tonight at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in upper Manhattan.

The Design Life Now show is more for designers and people who watch the latest trends in design and architecture than me.

There’s some interesting podcasts, including one from Marissa Mayer of Google - who is the only name I recognize on the list.  One thing Marissa Mayer is responsible for, apparently, is the design of Google News, Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Desktop - which is highlighted in the Design Life Now show.

Marissa talked about the 20% rule – where 20% of your time is used for whatever project your want; you can even do your laundry at Google’s office. 

In fact the first Google homepage started the minimalist trend because the founders did not know or want to bother with HTML – and this is well known.

Here’s the information I have about the Design Life Show and then I’ll share some pictures I managed to take.

“Design Life Now” is the theme of this year´s Cooper Hewitt design triennial, opening today. The exhibit features the best designs of the last three years, including the animation maquettes for fashions by Narcisco Rodriguez, architectural models from Santiago Calatrava and an interactive Albert Einstein robot. Tonight several experts in the field of designing life — the biotech artist Natalie Jeremijenko, the robotics maker David Hanson and Andrew Jimenez, a Pixar designer, among others — will be on hand for a panel discussion on how biology relates to art, engineering and artificial intelligence.

“Design Imitates Life?” 6:30-8:30 p.m., Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum 2 East 91st Street (5th Ave.), (212) 849-8400, $15 and $20 for non-members.

Here’s the picture of the interactive Albert Einstein Robot – I guess the Albert Einstein robot did not interact with me.

 

I wonder if Einstein’s clothes are based on an actual outfit he wore.  I was hoping to see Albert Einstein Robot talk about E=MC2 or something like that – but he stood, lifeless, in front of me.

I like the artist whose rugs are hanging on the wall at the far end of the picture above – don’t remember her name.

There are three floors to work though – and every one had something interesting to me to look at.  However, I enjoyed the bookstore in the lobby the most as there were many books and objects, reproductions, that were worth owning.

Anyway, after about 30 minutes in the Cooper Hewitt Museum design triennial – it was time for me to leave.