Aluminum by Design: Jewelry to Jets demonstrates how aluminum’s essential qualities of brilliance, strength, light weight, ductility, corrosion resistance, and ease of recycling have supported work by such visionaries as René Lalique, Jean Prouvé, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Russel Wright, Charles and Ray Eames, Gio Ponti, Donald Judd, Shiro Kuramata, and Philippe Starck.

The objects in this exhibition tell the story of aluminum as a design medium from its earliest beginnings. Because it can be recycled indefinitely without deterioration, aluminum is an ideal medium for the beverage and automotive industries. Masterpieces of recycling in the exhibition include a throne of a chief from Africa, made of wood with applied decoration made from recycled aluminum pots, and Boris Bally’s Transit Chairs, crafted from recycled traffic signs.

The final section of the exhibition looks at contemporary uses of aluminum, ranging from a dress made of aluminum disks in 1969 by the haute couture designer Paco Rabanne to a steelworker’s protective suit. Furniture includes a series of chairs by the London-based Israeli architect and designer Ron Arad that traces a specific design from its prototype to a limited edition aluminum make to a mass-produced plastic version, 1997-99, and Marc Newson’s limited edition Lockheed Lounge, 1985-86, whose streamlined, riveted surface recalls the bodies of jet airliners.

Aluminum by Design: Jewelry to Jets is curated by Sarah Nichols, curator of decorative arts and chief curator of Carnegie Museum of Art.