Bruce Rosenbaum’s imagination is a fantastic hybrid of turn-of-the-century aesthetics, punk rebellion, and futuristic design. Rosenbaum M.B.A. ’88 is cofounder of ModVic, a company specializing in Steampunk design. ModVic draws on Steampunk’s mash-up of Victorian motifs, sci-fi flights-of-fancy, and modern technology to produce one-of-a-kind functional objects for clients ranging from homeowners and interior designers to restaurants and tattoo parlors.
“Steampunk is a re-imagination of what might result if the Victorian or Industrial Age coincided with our modern technological era,” he says. “These are not museum pieces; they are built to be functional and to last.”
Rosenbaum and his wife, Melanie, live in a Steampunk home that was featured on MTV Cribs. They helped launch “Watch City,” an annual Steampunk Festival at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation in Waltham, Massachusetts. And they’re creating a retrofuture exhibition for “Steampunk Springfield: Re-imagining an Industrial City,” on view through September at the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum in Springfield. Rosenbaum also has collaborated with the University of Massachusetts Lowell to use elements of Steampunk as art therapy for people with autism.