FretHaus is a collaborative exhibition highlighting a semester’s work by Auburn Faculty in the School of Industrial + Graphic Design, their students, and the museum. It features creative new operational guitar designs, along with the developing concepts, renderings, and models. Unfolding over the course of the Spring 2022 semester, students added research, prototypes, workshopping ideas, and final fabricated objects.
“FretHaus” combines the word “fret,” a common guitar component, with the German word “haus” to echo the term Bauhaus, an influential school of art and design founded in 1919 in Weimar, Germany. Auburn’s nationally ranked industrial Design Progrm has roots connected to the Bauhaus movement: students of original Bauhaus faculty established the university’s program in 1945, making it one of the oldest design programs in the country.
The FretHaus exhibition series began in 2018 and the Alabama Contemporary Art Center in Mobile hosted it in 2021. This year, the museum is pleased to present FretHaus – particularly as it represents the intersection of visual and performance art, and an expression of multi-disciplinary connections across campus.
About the faculty
Rich Britnell is Professor of Industrial Design and Keith Medley is Professor of Practice in the School of Industrial and Graphic Design and Master Luthier and Product Development Manager for Gibson Guitars.
