56 Boulevard du Jardin Exotique
98000 Monaco
T +377 98 98 48 60
La Table des Matières is a dynamic library, forum and social hub, designed by Jonathan Olivares for Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (NMNM) and developed over the course of 2011 with the Public / Education department. This project was funded by a private benefactor who wanted to support NMNM’s educational tools and programs.
Positioned at the entrance to the museum’s Villa Paloma, the room offers an informal environment to reflect on the museum’s exhibition, education programs, as well as the horticulture project in the museum’s garden. A framework of wall-mounted templates, inspired by web media and blogs, allow the museum’s curators, education coordinator and gardener to regularly “post” books, videos, plants, useful tools, descriptive texts, and news for the visitor, and allow visitors to leave comments and their contact information for the museum.
Seated at tables within the space, visitors can utilize the room’s resources, learn, and discuss. The room’s southern wall bears a view of the Mediterranean Sea and the room’s northern wall is host to the Work of The Month, a revolving work of art, selected by the museum’s curators. Translated literally, La Table des Matières means “table of contents”, but the French term implies a broader arrangement of raw material or matter. Though the room does serve as an index of the museum’s activities, it was designed as a resource to further the museum’s goal of nurturing and developing the skills necessary for understanding and discovery.
Drawing from writer and thinker Edouard Glissant, NMNM sees the museum as a network of relations between various perceptions, an active laboratory building links between disciplines, a marker in an archipelago of knowledge.
Jonathan Olivares was born in Boston in 1981, and graduated from Pratt Institute’s industrial design program in 2004 after having studied design and management at the New School University. In 2006, he established Jonathan Olivares Design Research (JODR), an office dedicated to industrial design, exhibitions, and design related research and writing.
In 2011, Smith, JODR’s first product for Danese Milano, won the Compasso d’Oro. Olivares also received a second grant from the Graham Foundation for his research on outdoor academic and business work environments, and his first book, A Taxonomy of Office Chairs—detailing over 130 of the most innovative office chairs designed from 1840s to present—was published by Phaidon Press.
For more information contact François Larini, Curator of Public Programs
[email protected] / +377 98 98 44 84
Image above:
Credit: NMNM/Daniele Ansidei, 2012.