Aerospace Design: The Art of Engineering

Photo courtesy of NASA
Flight Research Helios

As an exploration of the connections between industrial design, architecture, engineering, and technology, this show emphasizes the significance of interdisciplinary thinking in creating innovative design solutions./Thomas F. Schutte, Pratt President

The exhibition features objects from NASA's collection, on view for the first time, and document progress made in aviation architecture and design during the last 100 years.

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Lockheed SR-71 in flight, 1995
Photo courtesy of NASA
Future Flight Blended 
Photo courtesy of NASA
Future Flight Mars 
Nearly 100 wind-tunnel models and artefacts from the federal agency's collection illustrates the importance of industrial designers as well as aeronautical specialists in creating the conceptual aircraft of the future.

Photo courtesy of NASA
AST (Advanced Supersonic Transport) model in Langley full-scale wind tunnel, 1975
Photo courtesy of NASA
Rehabilitation of the Transonic Wind Tunnel, 1990
Langley Research Center 
Some of the objects in the exhibition, which include wind-tunnel models and flight-test artefacts, date back to NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), founded in 1915.

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View of the Propeller Research Tunnel at the Langley Research Center, 1927
Designed by the Austin Company 

The purpose of the exhibition is to demonstrate that aerospace design is more than a matter of nuts, bolts, and rivets. Visual artists have had as much to do with the development and overall image of aviation and space travel in the last century as have aerospace engineers. Objects made for aeronautical engineering purposes, such as wind-tunnel models, as well as the aircraft themselves, are strikingly aesthetic./John Zukowsky, Co-curator, "Aerospace Design" exhibition for the Art Institute of Chicago.

The exhibition is presented by Pratt Institute and the Aerospace Technology Enterprise of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Photo courtesy of NASA
NASA Pilots