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The Art of Innovation

The Art of Innovation: Patterns from Atoms

Patterns from Atoms

BBC Radio 4 - The Art of Innovation, Patterns from Atoms

Tilly Blyth on atomic design décor at the 1951 Festival of Britain

Dr Tilly Blyth explores how textile design and patterns from x-ray crystallography came together to create a new modernity at the 1951 Festival of Britain

The thousands of visitors to the 1951 Festival of Britain were greeted with textile designs on wallpaper and furnishings that had come from atomic scale images created by X ray crystrallography. Images of compounds such as insulin and haemoglobin informed almost every aspect of the festival décor.  It was the result of a unique collaboration between textile designers, manufacturers and scientists. 

Tilly examines the evolution of the Festival Pattern Group, who would weave a fine line between good design and scientific credibility. As the Group’s molecular patterns on wallpaper and clothing held in the Science Museum Group’s collection reveal, a new window into an invisible molecular world now opened up to the public, a world which previously had only been visible to scientists. Whilst it was all part of the Festival’s post war “tonic to the nation” it rendered the atom benign in an era of cold war anxiety about the excesses of science. It also raised the cultural profile of crystallography.

Producer  Adrian Washbourne

Produced in partnership with The Science Museum Group

Photograph courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum

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Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

How art and science have inspired each other.

Sir Ian Blatchford and Dr Tilly Blyth explore how art and science have inspired each other.

In this landmark series, art historian and Director of the Science Museum Ian Blatchford and technology historian and Head of Collections of the Science Museum Tilly Blyth explore the art of invention and the invention of art and reveal the symbiotic relationship between the two. Many feel science takes the magic out of creativity. These programmes show how scientific advance facilitates creativity. And further, how artistic and scientific endeavour are inspired by the same desires and, often, are the result of intimate conversations between good friends. Galileo's painter friend Ludovicio Cigoli paints a maculate moon on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel and what does Galileo see when he looks through his telescope? A maculate moon. The poet Samuel Coleridge and the chemist Humphrey Davy were very close friends. Scientific innovators are creative thinkers. And the creation of art is dependent on technological development, as well as an aesthetic sense. Throughout history, artists and scientists have both desired to make sense of the world around them and change it, 

Produced in partnership with The Science Museum Group. 

Image credit: Science Museum Group Collection © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum.

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