Author: Emily Orr

SORT BY:
Image features wall mirror with simple rectangular frame with incised line and thumb indention-type decoration; uprights concave at top; top decorated with swags and stylized flowers. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object
Brandt in Bloom
This post was originally published on December 12, 2015. The French designer Edgar Brandt spurred a revival of interest in interior furnishings made of iron in the 1920s. His participation in the 1925 Paris Exposition won him great praise. Brandt’s ironwork was admired throughout the fair; he designed the gates of the front entrance, his...
Image features a laptop computer with a rectangular body with rounded corners, the housing of translucent clear and blue plastic with blue pull-out handle at back. The hinged lid opens to reveal a screen and an inset keyboard with function keys, a touch pad, power button and a small speaker. Separate disk-shaped clear plastic and metal power adapter contains windup cord. Scroll down for the blog post related to this image.
Think Different
Today’s Object of the Day celebrates the winners of Cooper Hewitt’s National Design Awards. Honoring lasting achievement in American design, the Awards take place annually during National Design Week, with festivities for all ages celebrating design creativity and innovation. Today’s post was originally published on September 9, 2015. “When was the last time someone offered...
Image features glass vase of roughly ovoid from with mottled iridescent decoration in shades of gold, blues reds and greens. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Ancient Attraction
From the archives, an Object of the Day post on an example of iridescent design from the collection.
Image features two people, one laughing, who sit in front of red typewriter. Please scroll down to read the text related to this image.
Behind the Scenes of Bob Greenberg Selects
The founder, chairman, and CEO of R/GA, a worldwide digital advertising agency, product and service innovator, and consultancy. Bob Greenberg is the 16th guest curator in Cooper Hewitt’s Selects series, in which prominent influencers, designers, and artists are invited to mine and interpret the museum’s collection of more than 210,000 objects. The R/GA team made three videos...
Image features eyeglass-like wearable technology with titanium frame that is a plain band on the left side and on the right side holds a clip-on camera, computer, battery, and speaker. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
O.K. Glass…
In celebration of Women’s History Month, March Object of the Day posts highlight women designers in the collection. When Isabelle Olsson, head of Industrial Design for Wearables, arrived at Google she was given the brief to make the existing clunky Google Glass prototype (a cellphone’s motherboard, a battery, and a Pico projector all taped to...
The Flapper’s Best Friend
Small and charming, this dance purse epitomizes both radical changes regarding women’s independence as well as the Art Deco style. The 1920s saw a shift in women’s behavior as they gained freedom after attaining the right to vote and the ability to become self-reliant, holding jobs and earning their own income. This freedom saw women...
Cooper Hewitt Short Stories: Watch This Window
In last month’s Short Story, Matthew Kennedy paraded us through the theatrical follies of the Hewitts, as well as the vivid and varied theatrical design collection of Cooper Hewitt. This month, Emily Orr, Cooper Hewitt’s assistant curator of modern and contemporary American design,  introduces us to the chic and imaginative world of store window displays...
View of a liviing room designed by Sue et Mare at Lord & Taylor. The round display consists of two padded arm chairs, a low coffee table with rounded legs, and a tall, paneled plinth on which stands a statue of a nude figure.
Beautiful Objects for General Consumption: The New York Department Store and Modern Design in the 1920s
In the 1920s, the New York department store was an early promoter and exhibitor of European modernism and a distiller of these new styles for the American consumer. Good Furniture magazine reported in 1928 that “Lord and Taylor has taken a very definite step forward toward the actual placing of modern furniture in American homes.”[1]...
A Sustainable Seat: The Alfi Chair
The Alfi chair is the product of a 2015 collaboration between British furniture-maker Jasper Morrison and American manufacturer Emeco. ­The chair’s simplicity expresses Morrison’s concept of “Super Normal” design, whereby objects are significant because of their everyday usefulness. The chair’s sturdy stance is in line with Emeco’s history as a manufacturer that prides itself in...