Past Exhibitions

Learning Lab: The Cell

Learning Lab: The Cell was  developed by the MIT Museum in collaboration with the MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences to create a space for self-guided and directed learning about DNA. It closes November 2011.

Types We Can Make
A Selection of Contemporary Swiss Type Design

Types We Can Make presented a selection of new typography from Switzerland, where type design has been a high art form for generations. Young Swiss designers today confront this long tradition with irreverence, humor and boldy creative strokes using digital and traditional design tools.

Dust Serenade

Dust Serenade was a reenactment of an acoustic experiment designed in 1866 by German physicist August Kundt. Inspired by physicist and musician Ernst Chladni, whose sand figures visualized sound waves in solid materials, Kundt devised an experiment for visualizing longitudinal sound waves through fine lycopodium dust. The setup allowed him to measure the speed of sound in different gases.

Mind and Hand:
The Making of MIT Scientists and Engineers

Mind and Hand explored the cultural curiosity that is an MIT education, and it explored the topic from the student perspective. Notes Deborah Douglas, curator of the exhibition, "Mind and Hand was not a dry survey of educational history but more of a living exhibition, giving visitors the opportunity to time travel through student life and learning from the mid-1800s, when the school was founded, to 2001 and beyond."

Luminous Windows 2010

Luminous Windows 2010 was the MIT Museum’s second annual winter display of holograms on Massachusetts Ave. Set in the MIT Museum’s ground-floor gallery windows, the holograms were visible from outside, on the sidewalks and street, every evening from dusk until 2 AM.

Giant Leaps: MIT goes to the moon

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission and in celebration of MIT’s pioneering contributions to the Apollo, the MIT Museum in collaboration with the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., created this showcase of historic artifacts and images.

Connections

February 12 - September 13, 2009

An exhibit of selected works by the Sociable Media Group at MIT. Art installations and research projects by the Sociable Media Group challenge visitors to think about the rapidly changing world of social interaction and the ramifications for the future.

Félix Candela: Builder, Engineer, Structural Artist

April 2 - September 27

Recognized as one of the great structural artists of the twentieth century, Spanish-born Felix Candela (1910-1997) designed and built innovative thin shell concrete roof structures using the hyperbolic paraboloid geometric form.

Hollowed

March 19 - September 13, 2009

An exhibition of selected works by Shada/Jahn (Steve Shada and MIT Media Lab Artist in Residence Marisa Jahn) and Cati Vaucelle.

Lo Rez/Hi Fi

April 7 - September 13, 2009
Designed by J. Meejin Yoon, Associate Professor, Architectural Design, MIT. This one piece exhibit explores issues of surveillance and information overload in the public realm.

Klein Side Scan Sonar: A World Leader in Ocean Exploration

MIT engineers have long played a major role in developing technologies that enable a broad range of work in the oceans. This ever changing hostile environment is a supreme challenge to all who work at sea. Sensing the underwater environment is vital to many things people take for granted such as global communications, energy and national security.

Ports and Ships: Photographs by Andrea Frank

Compton Gallery
February 10 - June 14, 2009

Luminous Windows: Holograms for the 21st Century

3-dimensional public art viewable every evening from the street
December 5 - March 31, 2009

Flashes of Inspiration

A multi-media celebration of the life and work of MIT legend, Harold "Doc" Edgerton, including his development of the electronic strobe and his dedication to making the invisible visible.