Last spring, the editors of The New York Times Magazine launched an international competition to design a time capsule. Participants received a simple set of guidelines: devise a means of preserving information until A.D. 3000 that takes the concept of a time capsule in new directions. In the end, almost 50 designers, architects, and engineers from 15 countries submitted entries that ranged from the practical to the whimsical, and a jury of Times editors and critics winnowed the entries to a select group.

The American Museum of Natural History exhibition coincides with publication of the sixth and final Millennium issue of The New York Times Magazine series that has explored the last 1,000 years. The Times Capsule was featured in the final issue of this series. This final issue showcases many of the items to be sealed inside and also explains the process by which the editors made their choices.

Capturing Time: The New York Times Capsule includes samples of the contents of the Times Capsule; some of the nearly 50 design proposals received in the competition to create the Times Capsule; and a more than 500-year-old Aztec artifact from the Museum's collection that evokes the Aztecs' conception of time. The exhibition also examines concepts of time such as biological time, cosmological time, and cultural time.

The exhibition was designed and executed by the American Museum of Natural History's Department of Exhibition, under the direction of David Harvey, vice president for Exhibition; key exhibition and design services were provided by Gerhard Schlanzky, Eric Janssen, Jayne Hertko, Lauri Halderman, Robert Vinci, Nancy Falkin, Frank Rasor, Deborah Barral and Steve Warsavage.

introduction | what is time? | notable entries
winning design | contents of times capsule | visitor information
the new york times