For all the successful products in today’s world, such as the Apple iPhone and Boeing 737, countless failed inventions had to have preceded them. No matter how good an idea may seem, multiple prototypes and experiments are necessary for the development of novel ideas—and not all of the original ideas will make the final cut. It is clear that with every undertaking, failure is inevitable. However, it is even more clear that success would not be possible without failure. The Museum of Failure demonstrates exactly this concept.
Samuel West had the genius idea of showcasing how common failure is all around us by opening the museum. This traveling pop-up exhibition, first launched in Sweden in 2017, displays over 150 failed products and services that paved the way for great innovations by some of the world’s best-known companies like Sony, Google, Heinz, and McDonald’s. After landing in cities including Los Angeles, Shanghai and Paris, the exhibit finally made its way to Washington D.C. in September. It was open in D.C. until Dec. 10, with tickets starting at $20.50 for adults and free admission for children ages 6 and under.
West, a licensed psychologist and innovation researcher with a Ph.D. in organizational psychology, was inspired to create the museum after a visit to the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia. Although it may seem like it, the intent of West’s traveling exhibit is not to mock companies for their failures. Rather, it is to encourage us to embrace failure and learn from our mistakes.
“The whole aim of the museum is to help people recognize that we need to accept failure if we want progress,” West said.
The exhibit contains a number of different categories under which they have placed the fails: “Failure in Motion,” “Digital Disasters,” “What Were They Thinking,” “Bad Taste,” “So Close and Yet” and more. “Failure in Motion,” for example, contains transportation failures, one of which being the notorious Titanic ship. The museum features a replica of the ship alongside a sign calling it the “largest and most luxurious passenger ship ever built,” but criticizing that “she was undone by the poor quality of the three million little rivets that held the ship together.” Over 1,500 people perished as the ship sank due to the lack of lifeboats carried by the vessel. However, without the epic failure that was the sinking of the Titanic, we would not have the new rules and regulations regarding safety measures that keep passengers on ships safe today.
“What Were They Thinking” features a number of seemingly ridiculous inventions that did not meet the standards they should have, including an interesting device called the Hula Chair. At first glance, this invention seems to be a normal chair but actually has an electronically powered seat that moves users around in a way similar to how a hula hoop would. The chair was supposed to give users “the ultimate ab-workout while at work,” but ultimately ended up making Time Magazine’s 2010 “50 Worst Inventions” list. Thanasis Kyparlis, a first-time visitor at the museum, found the Hula Chair to be his favorite part of the entire exhibit.
“They actually had one of the [hula] chairs in the museum that you could sit on,” Kyparlis said. “It was fun to test it out and see why it failed.”
In addition to the testable Hula Chair, the exhibit also presents an interactive wall filled with sticky notes where people can confess to their own failures. Among these, people have written things like “my math test,” “my marriage,” and more.
Contrary to its name, the Museum of Failure is definitely a success. This interactive and eye-opening experience displayed how common failures are and how to push through them. West did an excellent job of portraying how even the biggest companies have to work for success while still maintaining a light and comedic atmosphere.
“I had a good time,” Kyparlis said. “I think it could have been longer—I would have liked to see more, but I learned a lot from this.”
Written by Sahana Thyagarajan of Walt Whitman High School
Photo Courtesy of Flickr