Harvey Bernstein, a CCE Tenured Professor at Pratt Institute in New York, is teaching an exhibition design workshop at the College of Architecture + The Arts | Miami Beach Urban Studios.
Exhibition design is about storytelling in a three-dimensional space. An exhibition designer creates and builds environments that shape experiences in real-time. They develop and utilize story telling, space, objects, movement, and memory to facilitate a multi-layered, multi-scaled presence. Their work aims to communicate a message through engaging audiences in useful and meaningful interactions. An exhibit designer often works in a collaborative team process, integrating the disciplines of industrial design, architecture, graphic design, audio visual, digital media, lighting, and interior design. They work in various scales, including museums, exhibitions, retail spaces, trade shows, themed spaces, kiosks, visitor centers, and showrooms.
Students in this elective develop several three dimensional scaled models of projects that integrate all areas listed above. Special focus is on creating interpretive environmental experiences that include story telling, object design, and environmental design. After a short series of ideation studies, students develop a self-selected project. They will present this project in drawing and model form at the semester’s end.
The professor behind exhibition design is Harvey Bernstein, who graduated from Pratt Institute with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1964. Since then, he has taught at the New School for Design at Parsons, as well as Pratt Institute. He has also worked as a designer at R. Gersin Associates, as a senior designer at Gagnon Valkus, as executive designer at Unimark International, and as vice-president at Genesis Design Inc. He has been a consultant at Landor Associates, Chermayoff and Geismar, and Pentagram, and he is currently president of Bernstein Design Associates (BDA).
Bernstein has also presented at the International Design Conference (ICSID) in Nagoya, Fukui and Osaka, Japan. He has conducted lectures at the NY Japan Society, the Philadelphia College of the Arts, Miami University of Art and Design, and Florida International University. He has also served as the chair of the Industrial Designers Society of America, NYC chapter. His work has been exhibited at MoMA, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, Gallery 91, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, (AIGA), and the Art Directors Club, and he has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, The New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, Interiors Magazine, Interior Design Magazine, Architectural Record, Domus, and Abatare.
Among the awards he has won are four Interiors Magazine Awards for Retail , Office, and Exhibit Design (twice in the “Retail” category), the Gold Award for Product and Silver Award for Exhibit from Industrial Designers Society of America, a Roscoe Award for Furniture Design, the Best Space award at the New York Design Center, and a Lumin Award for Lighting from the Illuminating Engineering Society of America.
Follow FIU Interior Architecture on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
