The Disruptors

This week, the Petersen Automotive Museum will open a new exhibit featuring minimalist vehicles and complementary works by shoe designer Rem D Koolhaas and industrial designer Joey Ruiter. Located in the Armand Hammer Foundation Gallery, ‘Disruptors’ will explore how each designer’s perspective upends the status quo of traditional vehicle design by eliminating complexity to create visually arresting yet completely functional cars and other means of transportation.

Rem D Koolhaas, nephew and namesake of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, created the award-winning fashion label United Nude in 2003. United Nude is widely known for blending the worlds of fashion and architecture within abstract yet functional objects such as shoes, chairs and personal accessories. Joey Ruiter has worked with Herman Miller and other renowned brands designing products ranging from furniture to watercraft. Joey seeks to challenge common expectations, an aim that often yields startling and thought-provoking designs.

Although Koolhaas and Ruiter do not come from automotive backgrounds, they both independently began applying their dramatic design approaches to the car, resulting in vehicles with limited facets and curves that are still technically advanced and fully functional.

Works on display will include the Lo-Res Car Scultpure by United Nude – a conceptual work of art representing a Lamborghini Countach as if viewed in a lower 3D resolution. Vehicles on display will include Moto Undone by Joey Ruiter, a minimalistic city bike stripped of nearly all characteristics of typical motorcycles.

‘Disruptors’ will run until mid-March, 2020. For more information about this and other exhibitions at the Petersen Automotive Museum, click on the link below.

Images courtesy of © Rem D Koolhaas / United Nude and © Joey Ruiter / J.RUITER.

 petersen.org