“We just sat around and said, ‘what shall we do, what do we have available,’ then began moving all our furniture, our pieces, into the building,” Thompson says. The effort to collect pieces for a possible long-term D/R retrospective exhibit snowballed. Thompson and company scoured Cambridge-area antique stores and their own homes for old cookware, vases, or furnishings originally sold by D/R almost 50 years ago. Marimekko donated some of its modern merchandise to the exhibit, and a photographer took portraits of people wearing original D/R clothing to hang alongside the furnishings. One former D/R employee even donated her Marimekko wedding gown and bridesmaid dress.
“Everybody just loved being in this place so much that they just wouldn’t go home,” Thompson says. “We started around June, worked every weekend throughout the summer up until the very last day of October.”
At the end of October, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of D/R’s introduction of Marimekko to the United States, Thompson held a reception in the award-winning building. The Marimekko president flew in from Finland to attend.
Those hoping to walk around inside the exhibit or purchase any of the unusual pieces on display will be disappointed—all glass doors on all sides are locked and passersby can only admire the pieces from the street.
“It’s such a great use of the space during a period of time when the owners of the building are still waiting for an appropriate tenant,” executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association Denise E. Jillson says. “The response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive, as well as grateful.”
Jillson adds that many longtime Cambridge residents remembered the innovative products introduced by D/R fondly and were ecstatic at their reemergence.
Thompson says the exhibit design came together “out of memory” and “sort of like playing cards.”
“We worked with what we could, and with what everybody remembered,” she says. “It’s a genuine reliving, and everybody’s who lived in Cambridge remembers [D/R].”
Estelle Pedro, assistant manager of nearby store Clothware, says that while she had no idea whether having the D/R retrospective next door is improving her own shop’s business, she knows from personal experience the importance of the window display.
“It helps to have something there than nothing at all, of course,” Pedro says. “I also think it’s very smart of them to display an example of what they want to see in a tenant.”
The D/R retrospective runs through April 2010. Meanwhile, Poorvu is still seeking a permanent tenant. Sensitive to the original design concepts and ambitions espoused by the Thompsons and D/R, Poorvu has had difficulty finding an appropriate occupant to replace Crate and Barrel.
“We want an exciting tenant who will use the building properly,” he says.
–Staff writer Shan Wang can be reached at wang38@fas.harvard.edu