After three great flights I arrived into sunny New York City for my first visit.  Thaegenda for Day 1: Mid & Upper Manhattan > the galleries and museums including The  Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET ), the Solomon Guggenheim and Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). If you can’t get to New York – check out these galleries at http://www.googleartproject.com/ - Google has created this amazing virtual gallery of all the leading museums and galleries online.

I have always wanted to visit the big three in New York. Viewing them all is one day is not the way but on a tight schedule it had to suffice this time.  And they didn’t disappoint! I have been to several leading museums and galleries around the world, including the Tate, British Museum, and Museum of London, the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin & Weimar, and the Louvre and Pompidou Centre in Paris.  These three in New York are certainly up there on my list and they contain some of the most amazing modern art collections I have seen.

The MET is located on the Upper East Side on the edge of Central Park. It’s filled with amazing old relics, artwork from across the years, and some amazing installations. To do the MET justice you really need a full day, like most.

Next stop was the Guggenheim on the corner of 5^th Ave and 88^th Street. The Guggenheim is a Frank Lloyd Wright classic. Mr. Wright has always been an influence in my work and this gallery is a real gem. The famous atrium as you enter and the distinctive camera lens form contrasts sharply to the more boxy buildings that surround it nearby.

The Solomon Guggenheim was one of Wright's last major works and it must be one of the 20th century's most important architectural landmarks. I was here to mainly see the building itself as it was the subject, but it does contain an excellent collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art.

MOMA. Well it lived up to my expectation! This place probably has the best collection of contemporary art anywhere. Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Monet Water Lilies, Picasso Guitars, Pollock, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Johns, Mondrian; the works are all here. Also worth noting that the original ‘I Love NY’ created by Milton Glaser and Bobby Zarem (arguably one of the most plagiarised items of art in the whole of New York along with Louis Vuitton hand bag), the design collection with products from Dyson, Konstantin Grcic, Apple and Eames to name a few.

Designer Blythe Rees-Jones of Locus Research visited New York recently to attend the Medical Design and Manufacturing MD&M East tradeshow and the Medical Design Excellence Awards MDEA. Encircle Compression Therapy, a new medical devices developed by Blythe Rees-Jones and the Locus and TMC team was awarded a winner of the 2011 Medical Design Excellence awards – so Blythe went to the East coast of America to see what impact this new medical technology could have in the country of the stars & stripes. This is the first of a series of posts about his experiences on the trip.

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank  The Merino Company, Andy Wynne,  Delloch, Terry Vickers & Sean O'connor for supporting this trip.