Imagining the Future: The Southern California Automotive Design Studio

Southern California is home to more automotive design studios than anywhere else in the world, and to commemorate that relationship and celebrate Art Center College of Design's 60th Anniversary, the Petersen Automotive Museum is putting on a new permanent exhibition among its rolling time capsules and automotive memorabilia from Hollywood.

The new design exhibition showcases the history of the local design community and its contribution to the world. Located in the ‘Streetscape' section of the Petersen Automotive Museum, the Car Design Studio is at the modern end of a realistic walk-through diorama of California's history as it relates to the automobile.

The exhibit combines historic two-dimensional design studies, rare three-dimensional scale models, ‘in-progress' sketches, a clay model, video displays and other informative boards that illustrate how Los Angeles-based characters such as Harley Earl rose to become some of the most important designers of their age.

To bring the topic full circle, part of the floor space is devoted to a modern, functioning design studio. Starting from January 2009, Art Center students will perform design demonstrations on the second and fourth Sunday of each month.

By Eric Gallina