It is the wonder cabinet model of an interdisciplinary approach to learning, along with our delight in the idea of wonder, that inspired us to choose Wondercabinet as our company name. As designers, writers, educators and learners we strive to create experiences that continually provoke a sense of wonder and a desire for learning.

Since wonder cabinets were private collections, not public institutions, they did not form a true model for today's museums except perhaps in their spirit. According to Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York:

"Museums, as we know them, are primarily a creation of the late 18th century, although the term harks back to the Hellenistic origin of the institution as the abode of the muses, a place of learning and inspiration."

Our interest in wonder cabinets intensified after reading Lawrence Weschler's fantastic book Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder, about artist David Wilson and his Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles.

In his book, Weschler relates a discussion with Getty Museum director John Walsh, who had this to say about wonder cabinets:

"Ever since the late Renaissance these sorts of collections got referred to as Kunst und Wunderkammern. Technically, the term describes a collection of a type that's pretty much disappeared today - with the exception, perhaps, of the Jurassic - where natural wonders were displayed alongside works of art and various man-made feats of ingenuity. It's only much later, in the nineteenth century, that you see the breakup into separate art, natural history, and technology museums. But in the earlier collections, you had the wonders of God spread out there cheek-by-jowl with the wonders of man..."[pg. 61]