Minnesota by Design is a collection with a few storage difficulties. An Aeron chair would fit inside a museum. Frank Lloyd Wright’s gas station in Cloquet would require a more substantial rearrangement. Curated by Andrew Blauvelt, the Walker’s online survey gathered roughly a hundred designs from across the state without asking any of them to move.

The definition of design was generous. Furniture, graphics, architecture, landscapes, food, and games could all make a case for inclusion. Minneapolis-based Bill Stumpf’s collaboration with Don Chadwick on the Aeron chair appears alongside the Honeycrisp apple, the Post-it note, and an anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories. Some of these things had become so familiar that their being designed required pointing out.

Prince’s symbol became a name that could not be pronounced. After more than ten years in Minneapolis, my position on Prince is fairly predictable. I’m with the city on this one.

The gas station warrants a small detour. Wright’s Lindholm Service Station grew out of his Broadacre City plan. It has a cantilevered copper canopy and an upstairs glass lounge, considerably more architectural attention than a tank of gas usually receives. Wright wanted the fuel dispensers to hang overhead. Safety regulations had a different vision of the future.

The website offered several ways through this company: categories, an image grid, and a custom map locating the designs’ connections to Minnesota. Texts supplied the stories behind the things. The map also made the collection’s concentration around the Twin Cities apparent. Visitors could nominate additions, extending the survey beyond what one curator could know or one museum could own.