Exhibit: ‘Terence Conran: The Way We Live Now’

The Red Globe teapot by designer David Birch solves a small but pesky problem: It doesn’t drip when pouring. The pots were designed in 1991 for the Conran Shop, a U.K.–based design-goods store now with 10 outposts in six countries. Two hundred are on display at London’s Design Museum for the exhibit Terence Conran: The Way We Live Now, which toasts the museum’s 80-year-old founder and auteur of British design. From the ’50s onward, Conran promoted fresh, European aesthetics through his many home décor stores and his interiors firm, which designed Heathrow’s Terminal One. (His children, contemporary designers Sebastian, Jasper, and Sophie Conran, continue his legacy.) The knighted man’s sweep was wide, but his aim was narrow: “to produce useful things at a price that most people can afford,” he says. “Such things may not win design prizes, but neither do they go out of fashion.” That’s something to raise your teacup to. Through March 4. • designmuseum.org