Given that many design stores are now displaying their wares in museumlike settings, with the reciprocal effect of making museums look more like showrooms, Urbach’s beyond-the-pedestal strategy seems almost a prerequisite for differentiation. At the same time, this approach reinforces the notion that design and architecture in many ways exist outside the physical artifact. The curator and Cincinnati Art Museum director Aaron Betsky is charting a similar course as organizer of the upcoming Venice Architecture Biennale. “The theme is going to be architecture beyond buildings—how architecture achieves its aims without buildings, around buildings, through buildings,” says Betsky, adding that when the 10th Biennale opens, in September, it will include “films, site-specific installations, collected images and manifestos”—anything, it seems, but buildings as conventionally represented in models and photographs.

It’s worth noting, however, that just as Betsky, the former director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute and a predecessor of Urbach’s at sfmoma, was being appointed director of the Cincinnati museum in 2006, Terence Riley, who previously held Bergdoll’s position at MoMA, was settling into the same post at the Miami Art Museum. That both came from architecture and are now heading art institutions that are in the midst of constructing dramatic new facilities may speak to just how important real buildings are to museums nowadays.

Of course, the acquisition and preservation of real objects remains the core mission of museums. “We’re trying to identify key designers and really exciting work that shows a story of the current state of design and where it’s heading,” says Ryan, who joined the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006 with a mandate to develop its contemporary-design collection. Under the architecture and design curator Joe Rosa, her department already has significant 20th-century holdings. Yet as Ryan prepares to move into expanded quarters next spring, she and her peers are confronting questions about how to acquire the latest work.

For one thing, how do you collect interactive media? Or software that requires obsolete hardware that’s prone to breaking down, if it’s available at all? How do you sift through and consider the dizzying array of prototypes, maquettes and process renderings, both digital and physical? And when you acquire an object made by rapid prototyping—a way of “printing” three-dimensional objects that has had a huge impact on design—do you also acquire the computer code it’s based on? For MoMA, the answer is yes.

Then there’s the rising market for limited-editions like Zaha Hadid benches and Bouroullec brothers beds. At its best, most curators say, the current climate creates a platform for experimentation and a way for designers to fund new ideas while generating heightened interest in design. At its worst, it’s an overhyped distraction that saps talent that could be put to better use, while inflating prices to the detriment of both museums and the designers whose work institutions now can’t afford. Still, “we’ll weather it,” says Antonelli. “But honestly, of the 400,000 people who see a show at MoMA, only a small fraction [will ever have any experience with] this kind of furniture.” The debate may continue in the field, but the wider world focuses on the practical. Even museums have bigger issues to contend with—“like storage,” Antonelli says.

"Thinking Inside the Box" originally appeared in the April 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's April 2008 Table of Contents.