Inside the Design Center

Step through the doors of Mingei International Museum and prepare to be transported.

The new exhibition, Inside the Design Center, is a portal to the 1950s during a time when San Diego was an incubator for groundbreaking design. The recreation of Ilse and Lloyd Ruocco’s legendary Design Center in Hillcrest brings to life a vignette of mid-twentieth century interior, lighting, and furniture design, featuring pieces by significant California designers and craftspeople.

“Built specifically to foster community, at a time (1949) when modern design principles were not well-understood, there was simply nothing else like the Design Center — a single home for an array of top design professionals and a modern furniture showroom that was equally distinct for its early selection of pieces by California designers and makers,” says Dave Hampton, the co-curator. This exhibition offers an immersive, revelatory window into San Diego’s culture of modernism through the lens of architecture, design, graphic design, and photography.