DCOTA LAUNCHES ART-CASE PIANO INTERNATIONAL DESIGN COMPETITION

Call for Entries for International Design Competition.

For Immediate Release

CALL FOR ENTRIES DEADLINE MAY 15!

DESIGN CENTER OF THE AMERICAS ANNOUNCES 21st CENTURY ART-CASE PIANO INTERNATIONAL DESIGN COMPETITION

Winning Entry to be Built and Unveiled in October at DCOTA's Design + Architecture Month Program, "The Voyeur & The Virtuoso"

DANIA BEACH, FL -- Calling all musicians, architects, artisans, designers, students, professionals, furniture craftsmen and more. Design Center of the Americas (DCOTA), the world's largest global design center campus, and Maximiliaan's House of Grand Pianos, wants to see your vision of what the first art-case piano of the 21st Century should look like. As part of its ongoing commitment to nurturing promising new talent and up-and-coming designers, DCOTA has launched an international search for the most inspiring, innovative and creative art-case piano design.

Maximiliaans's House of Grand Pianos, the premier source for unique and historically important art-case pianos with galleries at DCOTA in Florida, New York and Texas, will build the winning entry to the designer's specifications. The winner will be unveiled at DCOTA's "The Voyeur & The Virtuoso" program during Design + Architecture Month in October 2002.

In conjunction with the piano unveiling, DCOTA will showcase an extensive tribute to the marriage of music and design including "Acoustical Architecture," a public photo exhibition celebrating the grandest opera houses and concert halls in the world. Maximiliaan's will also curate an elaborate display featuring eight of the most important pianos in the history of art and piano design. South Florida's top interior designers will participate in the month-long festivities by contributing their expertise to create inspirational vignettes with a central music theme incorporating brand new collections and exquisite products from DCOTA showrooms. Local symphonies, operas and schools will also be participating in the event.

Entry is free and the competition is open to anyone with a vision and a means of expressing it. Official rules, regulations and entry information can be obtained from DCOTA by calling (954) 920-7997 or e-mailing dcota@dcota.com re: piano competition. Deadline for submission is May 15, 2002.

Maximiliaan's House of Grand Pianos prides itself for having rewritten a lost page in art history: the art of the art-case piano. The pianos in Maximiliaan's collection are either meticulously restored and refinished original period instruments conserved for generations to come, or exquisite reproductions - often one-of-a-kind designs - which represent the revival of this lost art form. Selected instruments from Maximiliaan's are part of the collections of The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Bard Music College, and The Curtis Institute of Philadelphia. Maximiliaan's has also acted as a consultant to Sotheby's and Christie's. Featured on CD covers and in music videos, as well as on the stages of Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, Maximiliaan's pianos are highly regarded among actors, celebrities, opera singers, and royal families, as well as many noted musicians and demanding pianists. For more information on Maximiliaan's House of Grand Pianos, please call (954) 924-2221 or visit them online at www.pianomax.com.

The Design Center of the Americas, the world's largest free-standing design campus housing 775,000 square feet of exclusive showrooms featuring more than 5,500 unique lines of fine furniture, fabrics, art, antiques, kitchen, bath, flooring, lighting and more, is located at 1855 Griffin Road in Dania Beach, Florida. DCOTA is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on weekends during regularly scheduled events. For more information about DCOTA, please call (954) 920-7997 or visit them online at www.dcota.com

# # #