O2 Eureka! Gallery

The earliest notes and sketches from some of the world’s greatest creative visionaries including designers, architects and animators have been brought together in an exhibition that explores modern history’s greatest “Eureka Moments”.

To launch the new smartphone from Samsung, Galaxy Note 4, the exhibition curated by O2 in partnership with the Science Museum’s Inventor in Residence Mark Champkins explores the creative process employed by modern innovators to generate new concepts and ideas.

The rare and unseen content showcases the varied ways that inventors captured their earliest thoughts. Whether the original sketches were drawn in pencil, pen and ink or on a tablet, the Eureka Gallery celebrates the creative sparks that grew into breakthrough designs.

Mark Champkins, Inventor in Residence at the Science Museum and co-curator of the Eureka Gallery said: “O2’s Eureka Moments exhibition is a celebration of some of the great creative visionaries of recent times and we hope it inspires people to have their own Eureka moments.”

Displayed on Samsung Galaxy Note 4 tablets the exhibition is divided into four zones in which visitors can see the original sketches for iconic designs including:

CHARACTER
• The original 1950s drawings for the character that went on to become Dennis the Menace scribbled on the back of a cigarette packet
• Original pencil drawings of Hello Kitty from Japanese designer Yuko Yamaguchi
• Designer Andrew Ainsworth’s original pencil sketches of the mechanics to get Superman to fly in the 1977 movie
• Original sketches from George Lucas showing the first design of the Star Wars, Stormtrooper costume

DESIGN
• Initial designs of the revolutionary Brompton Bicycle
• Seymour Powell’s initial concept of the high-tech Life Tech Smart Jacket
• The first patent design for the Anglepoise Original1227™ Lamp

ARCHITECTURE
• Architectural drawings for the Eiffel Tower, from 1887
• Early stage sketches of Gensler’s iconic Shanghai Tower

TECHNOLOGY
• Drawings displaying a section view, through centre part of engine room of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s SS Great Britain
• An image showing the moment in the Hydrodynamic tunnel test that confirmed that Concorde could endure travelling at twice the speed of sound
• Original notes behind the creation of the Babbage Counting Machine
• Initial drawings behind the creation of Stephenson’s Rocket
Most Creative Room in the World

Alongside the exhibition O2 has collaborated with Champkins and several sensory inventors to build the “Most Creative Room in the World”.

Based on Mark’s extensive research into the science of creative thinking the room will provide visitors with the optimum colour, lighting by Creatmosphere, the perfect smell with The Perfume Mistress, temperature, sound, and taste with the help of Sam Bompas to support the generation of new ideas. Samsung Galaxy Note 4 tablets will be on hand to capture these first creative nuggets.

For those who prefer a more traditional route to ideas, the room also features a bath in which visitors can spend time pondering their latest ideas in the hope of striking upon a Eureka Moment of their own just like Archimedes himself.