The Wish List

This year major museums in London, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York all appointed new curators and directors to oversee their contemporary-design collections and exhibitions. We caught up with six who were just stepping into their new roles and invited them to list a handful of fantasy acquisitions—unrestricted by space, funds, or availability—as an indication of their ideas for the future. Here’s our assembled portrait of this generation’s tastemakers as they begin to recover what’s important from the past and define what matters today in the world of architecture and design.

For a detailed listing of curators and their fantasy acquisitions, click on the images.