Let’s help the Carnegie Museum of Art find this 1960 Westinghouse center drawer refrigerator

Yup, Pam is talking to the Carnegie Museum of Art about whether they will accept her donation of her NOS Griswold Symbol cookware for an upcoming exhibition about its designer, Peter Muller-Munk. Meanwhile, the Museum tells us that the one item they still super eager to find is the 1960 Westinghouse Center Drawer Refrigerator — a hunka hunka also designed by Muller-Munk and his firm. So it’s a call to all Retro Renovation treasure hunters: Can we help find one of these beautiful 1960 refrigerators for the Carnegie Museum of Art?!  

Ooooh, get this: “The original Center Drawer Refrigerator was available in eight color schemes – including wood paneling, apple red, lemon yellow, and frosting pink.” YUM.

Catherine Walworth, Curatorial Research Assistant for the upcoming exhibit Silver to Steel: The Modern Designs of Peter Muller-Munk at the Carnegie Museum of Art, wrote to us:

I have to tell you that we love what you do and your blog is fun and fascinating. One of the objects that we want for the exhibition—and which has continued to elude us—is a Westinghouse Center Drawer refrigerator c. 1960. These came in various decorator colors, and I have attached two different advertisements. If you find one or know where we can get one, please do let us know. It’s something of a “white whale” for us and we have tried several avenues.

SEEKING WESTINGHOUSE CENTER DRAWER REFRIGERATOR

Carnegie Museum of Art is organizing an exhibition on Pittsburgh industrial designer Peter Muller-Munk (1904–1967), opening in November 2015. At its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, Peter Muller-Munk Associates was one of the top ten industrial design firms in the United States, although history has all but forgotten it. This project will attribute dozens of designs to Muller-Munk for the first time: midcentury radios, tools, housewares, and appliances of all shapes and sizes.

Among the objects designed by Muller-Munk and his firm is the 1960 Westinghouse Center Drawer Refrigerator. CMOA is seeking an example in good cosmetic condition; it does not need to function. The original Center Drawer Refrigerator was available in eight color schemes – including wood paneling, apple red, lemon yellow, and frosting pink.

If you have a Westinghouse refrigerator like the one illustrated here, please contact Dawn Reid at reidd@cmoa.org or 412.622.6265.

Have one of these beauties in your basement?
Saw one at your local ReStore?
Let’s see if we can give the Carnegie Museum of Art some leads!