Accessibility Programs

Explore the galleries at your own pace, with the opportunity for verbal description, conversation, close looking, and occasional touch objects, facilitated by staff stationed at select exhibition objects.

Join us for an after-hours happy hour of structured fun with drinks, snacks, and a design activity. Explore a select exhibition with friends and peers in the quiet galleries.

Through lectures, panels, workshops, and community gatherings, these programs aim to highlight the work of disabled designers, and examines how disability can inform design practices, aesthetics, and systems.

Explore a Cooper Hewitt exhibition with a Deaf educator, led solely in ASL, exclusive to the Deaf and hard of hearing community. Stay for an ASL interpreted public program related to the exhibition tour for more content.

See Me at Cooper Hewitt is a free program that fosters connection and belonging for adults with dementia and their companions through discussions and reflections on museum objects.

We welcome families whose members have disabilities to any of our public family programs. Access Hour programs have specific opportunities for various forms of engagement and a quiet space.

Public tours are offered regularly and are free with museum admission. Most tours involve walking around the museum and standing in galleries for extended periods of time; standard manual wheelchairs and portable stools are available for those who need them. Learn more about tours at Cooper Hewitt.  ASL interpretation is available by request for any Cooper Hewitt tour, free of charge.  To request these services, email CHTours2@si.edu or call 212.849.8351. Please make your request at least one week prior to your visit. 

Private tours are offered to organizations that work with disabled communities. Tours are facilitated by Design Guides specially trained in working with groups with a variety of disabilities. ASL interpretation is available by request for any Cooper Hewitt tour, free of charge. To request these services, email CHTours2@si.edu or call 212.849.8351. Please make your request at least six weeks prior to your intended visit.