The New Experience

Experience more design

Cooper Hewitt’s renovation now offers an entirely new and invigorated experience, with interactive, immersive creative technologies at the heart of every visit and 60% more gallery space to explore.

Explore, Create & Collect with the Pen

Explore the digitized collection on large touchscreen tables; draw your own wallpaper designs in the Immersion Room; solve real-world design problems in the Process Lab; discover how the Carnegie Mansion worked as house; and understand how donors have influenced the museum’s collection over the last 100 years.

“Play designer” on 4K resolution touchscreen tables, developed by Ideum, that feature specialized interactive software designed by Local Projects. The 84-, 55-, and 32-inch tables use projected capacitive touch technology – the same technology found in popular tablets and smart phones. The ultra-high-definition resolution allows you to zoom in on objects to see minute details like never before.

The Collection Browser is available on seven tables installed throughout all floors of the museum, giving you access to thousands of objects in the museum’s collection, including those currently on view in the galleries. The largest tables allow up to six visitors to simultaneously explore high resolution images of collection objects, select items from the “object river” that flows down the center of each table, zoom in on object details, learn about its history, and related objects organized by design theme and motif. You can also draw a shape that will bring up a related collection object, or try their hand at drawing simple three-dimensional forms.

Another screen on the second floor reveals the history of the Carnegie Mansion before it became the Cooper Hewitt. You can navigate the Mansion History application using the original floor plan of the building and browse through architectural details, original fittings and fixtures, and the quirks of the mansion’s original residents.

Immersion Room

The Immersion Room on the second floor uses digital and projection technologies to bring the museum’s collection of wallcoverings, the largest and most significant in North America to life. Browse hundreds of high-resolution digitized wallpapers and see them projected at full-scale, floor-to-ceiling on the surrounding walls. Sketch your own designs, adjust the colors and manipulate repeat patterns, and see them projected on the walls around you. Selected wallcoverings are accompanied by brief audio commentary with designers, who share design insights and inspiration.

Process Lab

In the dynamic and interactive Process Lab, you can brainstorm design solutions through hands-on and digital activities. The Process Lab emphasizes how design is a way of thinking, planning and problem solving, and provide a foundation for the rest of the design concepts on view in the museum.

Preview the New Cooper Hewitt Experience

Video produced by Local Projects

Digital experience supported by:

The Pen is powered by Duracell.