News & Events
Museum Interactive Design Pioneer Edwin Schlossberg
to Discuss Ellis Island and Other Projects on May 1
Interactive design pioneer Edwin Schlossberg will give a multi-media presentation on several of his signature projects -- including the Ellis Island American Family Immigration History Center and the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center -- in the Klitgord Center Auditorium on Thursday, May 1 at 1 p.m.
Schlossberg, who made his mark on interactive design more than 25 years ago when he created the nation's first hands-on learning environment for the Brooklyn Children's Museum, will discuss "Design for Interactive Learning, Design with the Audience in Mind."
Author of the groundbreaking book, Interactive Excellence: Defining and Developing New Standards for the Twenty-first Century, he will touch on his design philosophy and illustrate how he continues to shape the future of interactive design as head of ESI Design, an internationally renowned and award-winning New York firm specializing in experiential design.
ESI Design created Ellis Island's American Family Immigration History Center, which opened in 2001. This project had personal meaning for Schlossberg, whose four Russian-born grandparents entered America via Ellis Island a century ago. Among the activities for visitors is searching a database of ships' manifests from 1892 to 1924 for evidence of their ancestors. They can then augment the information by recording oral histories and scanning photos and documents about their relatives, whether or not their ancestors are listed in the passenger search records, to create a "Family History Scrapbook," which becomes a permanent part of the Center's collection.
The year 2001 also marked the opening of the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, DC, an interactive museum designed by ESI about Catholicism. Like the Ellis Island project, this exhibit offers visitors the chance to enhance what they learn about Catholicism by using words, music and pictures to describe what the religion means to them.
Long before the concept of "interactivity" came into vogue, Schlossberg began designing participatory experiences for various institutions. After earning a doctorate in science and literature at Columbia University, he was mentored by inventor-philosopher Buckminster Fuller, who was pioneering interactive concepts in education. He built upon that experience when he was subsequently hired to teach environmental design in Berkeley, CA, which led in 1970 to the career-defining assignment of designing new exhibits at the Brooklyn Children's Museum.
In addition to heading up the 50-employee ESI Design, Schlossberg is an artist who had a retrospective of his work at the National Arts Club in 2001 and the author of 11 books. He and his wife Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg have three children and live in New York.
Schlossberg's presentation at New York City College of Technology is being sponsored by the campus' Jewish Faculty & Staff Association and numerous other campus and community groups, including the College's Committee on Pluralism & Diversity and Facing History and Ourselves, a national nonprofit educational organization. For more information, call 718.260.5837.
