Cabinets of Wonder — Professor Emily Conrad
Layout Redesign: NY Transit Museum
My redesign of the NY Transit Museum's Metro Card Memorial exhibit focuses on the installation of a six foot tall MetroCard Sculpture. The new steel plate metro card serves as a photo moment to capture people's attention and draw attention to the details of the most classic design.
Accommodating this piece was the difficulty of the installation space. I wanted it to be somewhere that visitors could engage with it as the centerpiece for a photo opportunity. This staging meant that we would need to have visitors able to move around the piece in 360 degrees. In my redesign, I staged it off center in front of a wall of former metro card designs.
Another change I made was to put the classic metro card dispenser out of glass and touchable by the public. So much of our memory is tied to specific actions and physical interactions I think just getting to buy a metro card one last time is ideal. In a perfect world, it would be functional and give out commemorative metro cards that say something like "NY Transit Museum". I'm basically throwing out the idea of a realistic budget for this redesign.
Okay, and how could we forget the most iconic MetroCard moment, the quick swipe? I feel like it was such a missed opportunity to feel that frustration again. This is a nice moment to put the metro card into the ground, it says, this is exactly what we're moving away from, don't miss it too much.
While we're on the subject, it would be incredible if your custom card could display a personalized message when swiped. This would be such a crazy security risk, but I'm sure it would drive collectors to the museum in droves.
