Meet The Titans Of Taste

Paul Thompson, DIRECTOR, COOPER-HEWITT DESIGN MUSEUM

Like any one of the 250,000 objects under his care, Paul Thompson, director of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt design museum, looks immaculately put together. His pin-striped suit is elegant. His British accent is enviably academic. And his $40 translucent Swatch watch is totally cool. "I got it in London last year," he says. "I just love it."

Thompson's one bit of flash isn't going to have anyone mistaking him for Liberace. But it's an apt symbol for the Cooper-Hewitt, a sanctuary for classic design. (Last year's exhibit on Russel Wright put an overlooked American artist back on the cultural map.) Says Thompson, "We're all about the shock of the old." A perfect example: 19th-century English master Christopher Dresser, the subject of a 2004 Cooper-Hewitt exhibition, whose 1875 iron-and-glass hall stand is shown here. And you thought it was a chair.

Multimedia on Thames

Alice Rawsthorn, DIRECTOR, DESIGN MUSEUM OF LONDON

Ask Alice Rawsthorn for a favorite example of smart design from the past year and she pauses for just a moment. "Probably Grand Theft Auto: Vice City," she says. That's right, the videogame. "Its design values are remarkable." What were you expecting her to say? A sofa? The creator of Grand Theft Auto, British-based Rockstar Games, was up for 2003's designer-of-the-year award from the Design Museum of London, a can't-miss destination launched by Sir Terence Conran in 1989 and run by Rawsthorn since 2001. Rockstar Games didn't win, but its nomination is a clear reflection of Rawsthorn's eagerness to extend people's notions of design in new directions. "I find multimedia design fascinating," says Rawsthorn, who came to the museum after a long career as a critic for the Financial Times. "It's no longer just theoretical stuff for an elite group of buffs. It's changing the way we live."