Art News

Design Museum acquires design icons: Red telephone box and traffic lights

LONDON.- To coincide with the opening of the Design Museum’s latest exhibition, ‘This is Design’, the museum has announced two major acquisitions to its Collection: Britain’s celebrated red telephone box, donated by BT and a set of traffic lights designed by David Mellor. The acquisitions are both featured in ‘This is Design’ which celebrates and features highlights from the museum’s Collection including the Anglepoise lamp, UK road signs, UK traffic lights, the candlestick telephone and the Moulton bicycle. The telephone box, also known as the K6 Kiosk, celebrates its 75th birthday this year. It was introduced in 1936 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V. The “Jubilee Kiosk”, as it became known, was designed by English architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1880-1960) and was similar, but smaller than its predecessor the K2, also designed by Sir Giles.