Year: 2022

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Four transparent, colorless glass vessels of different shapes but relatively similar sizes.
Year of Glass: Reflections of People & Cultures
As the 2022 International Year of Glass concludes, study of the medium prompts questions about human history and culture.
A digital collage of seven images of various types of design objects, including posters, a wallpaper, a textile, and salt and pepper shakers.
Women in Design
Discover the cross-disciplinary work of women in design through seven objects.
Grid of various symbols appearing largely in black and white, with a few symbols marked in red.
“Give Me a Sign: The Language of Symbols” Exhibition To Open This Spring at Cooper Hewitt
From the stop sign to the laugh-cry emoji, symbols play a critical and ubiquitous role in everyday life. A forthcoming exhibition at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, “Give Me a Sign: The Language of Symbols,” will examine the fascinating histories behind many of the symbols that instruct, protect, entertain, empower and connect people. Presented in the Design Process Galleries on the museum’s first floor, the exhibition will be on view May 13, 2023, through Aug. 11, 2024.
Two glass vessels lit from above causing dramatic and intricate patterns of light and shadow to be cast around them.
Year of Glass: 3D-Printed Glass
Neri Oxman's 3D-printed GLASS series may contain answers for the future of the medium and its use.
Close-up view of the back of a wooden chair, a rectangular shape with concave edges and, embedded into it on deer hide, glass beads in white, brown, blue, red, green, and orange forming graphic abstract shapes.
Year of Glass: Contemporary Native American Beadwork
Teri Greeves embellishes traditional woodwork with glass beads to celebrate her Kiowa culture and ancestry.
Sepia toned postcard with man sketching at drafting table with ornate fireplace in back. Top of postcard reads "Le Style Guimard"
Hector Guimard’s Standard-Construction System
A photo album in Cooper Hewitt’s collection documents the construction of a prototype house in Paris, France, that demonstrates the principles of Standard-Construction, a patented modular building system designed by French architect Hector Guimard in the early 20th century. Like many architects of his time, Guimard explored the possibility for standardization and prefabrication to streamline...
“Hector Guimard: How Paris Got Its Curves” and “Deconstructing Power: W. E. B. Du Bois at the 1900 World’s Fair” to Open this Fall at Cooper Hewitt
Furniture, metalwork, ceramics, drawings and photographs will transform the second floor of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum into early 20th century Paris in two parallel and complementary exhibitions, “Hector Guimard: How Paris Got Its Curves,” opening Nov. 18, and “Deconstructing Power: W. E. B. Du Bois at the 1900 World’s Fair,” opening Dec. 9.
Glass table formed by a circular top on tripod base composed of three angled, oval legs. Glass iridizes and changes color depending on angle of view.
Year of Glass: Specialty Glasses with Special Effects
Laminated glasses have many practical and aesthetic uses, and, when combined with modern applications of ancient technologies, can have dazzling effects.
The Hewitt Sisters and the Anti-Suffrage Movement
Women's right to vote was a widely debated issue in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. Prominent women were on both sides of the debate, which pushed against traditional views of gender and class.