Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is the only museum in America devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design. A twenty-first century museum housed in the historic Carnegie Mansion, Cooper Hewitt advances the public understanding of design through dynamic, interactive exhibitions and impactful educational programing. 

Cooper Hewitt is also dedicated to preserving, researching, and exhibiting a collection of over 210,000 design objects spanning thirty centuries that serves as inspiration for creative work of all kinds and tells the story of design’s paramount importance in improving people’s daily lives.   

The recent renovation of the building and campus merged state-of-the-art restoration and conservation of the mansion’s historic features with bold reimaginings of exhibitions and gallery spaces, visitor experiences, and digital technologies. The result is a museum that stands as a new paradigm for design thinking and problem solving.  

• There are four floors of galleries and interactive technologies dedicated to all disciplines of design.
• A continually refreshed installation of design objects showcases the permanent collection of drawings, prints, graphic design, product design, textiles, wallcoverings, and digital design.
• The top floor of the museum contains the Barbara and Morton Mandel Design Gallery, a 6,000 square-foot contemporary gallery dedicated to special exhibitions.
• The Interactive Pen—a global first—transforms the museum experience, and allows visitors to collect and permanently save their visits.
• Other cutting-edge interactive technologies include a Process Lab and Immersion Room, as well as large touchscreen tables placed throughout the museum for exploring the collection and the design process.
• A permanent exhibition highlights objects acquired by the museum’s founders, Sarah and Eleanor Hewitt.
• A period room displays exotic carved teak interiors designed by Lockwood de Forest, and is one of the great treasures of the Carnegie Mansion.
• The mansion’s enclosed garden, the largest in New York City, is open to the public and has been elegantly restored and rejuvenated.

Outside the museum walls, Cooper Hewitt is in schools across the United States through its national Design in the Classroom initiative. Design in the Classroom introduces students K-12 to design thinking as a tool for creative problem solving.

Online, Cooper Hewitt has digitized over 100,000 of its collection objects, and also offers its typeface, a 3-D model of Carnegie Mansion, and other open-source resources for unrestricted reuse. Each year, Cooper Hewitt presents the National Design Awards to honor lasting achievement in American design. 

As the nation’s design museum, our commitment is to deliver great design to the broadest and most diverse audiences possible. 

 

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