Join us for a look at how popular music and design influenced the material culture and lifestyle of the 1960s–1980s. Pat Kirkham (Bard Graduate Center), Paula Scher (Pentagram), Ben Watson (Herman Miller), and Stephen Duncombe (NYU) explore highlights of Cooper-Hewitt’s collection, from graphic design to furniture and product design.
The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum will celebrate outstanding achievement in American design this fall with its 15th annual National Design Awards program. Today, Cooper-Hewitt director Caroline Baumann announced the winners of the 2014 National Design Awards, which recognize excellence and innovation across a variety of disciplines. The award recipients will be honored at a...
2013 National Design Award winner Margie Ruddick is recognized for her pioneering, environmental approach to urban landscape design, forging a design language that integrates ecology, urban planning, and culture. Ruddick fosters the idea of nature in the city through projects including New York's Queens Plaza, and Trenton Capital Park on the Delaware River. Ruddick's international...
This May, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum will celebrate NYCxDesign—New York City’s citywide event to showcase and promote design of all disciplines—with several initiatives, including the Design by Hand series, a programmatic takeover of Public School 124 in Queens, Design Tales for toddlers and design fair partnerships. Now in its second year, NYCxDesign, held...
The Smithsonian Institution’s board of regents recently appointed to the board of trustees of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Jon Iwata, senior vice president, marketing and communications, IBM; Avi Reichental, president and CEO, 3D Systems; and Todd Waterbury, senior vice president, executive creative director, marketing, Target Corporation. Led by chair Barbara Mandel and president Beth Comstock,...
There are lots of ways to sort and view the works in our collection. Perhaps you'd like to see everything that's considered art deco. Maybe you want to see everything in wool. Or everything that's got a dog on it. Or all things light green. We've recently begun to explore a new category of collection objects: things that...
Michael Sorkin is an architect and urbanist whose practice spans design, criticism, and teaching. He is the principal of Michael Sorkin Studio in New York, a global design practice focused on urbanism and green architecture. James Wines is founder and president of SITE, a New York-based architectural studio chartered in 1970. Through his multidisciplinary practice,...
Second Offering in Biannual Series Supported by Van Cleef & Arpels This May, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum will present the next installment of its Design by Hand series, which focuses on the craftsmanship, innovations and merits of pioneering design organizations. Held May 6–10 during NYCxDESIGN, the weeklong program will spotlight Heath Ceramics, whose...
MacArthur Fellow and 2013 National Design Award Winner Jeanne Gang is the founder of Studio Gang Architects, a Chicago-based collective of architects, designers, and thinkers practicing internationally. Gang uses architecture as a medium of active response to contemporary issues and their impact on human experience. Each project resonates with its specific site and culture while...
The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum today announced the release of its fourth DesignFile e-book, Favelization: The Imaginary Brazil in Contemporary Film, Fashion & Design by Adriana Kertzer. DesignFile is a line of e-books on design writing and research published by the museum in consortium with academic and institutional partners. In Favelization, Kertzer sets out...
The Honey Pop Chair is made entirely of paper. 120 layers of honeycombed, glassine paper. Designed by Tokujin Yoshioka, who is known to use materials in unexpected ways, the chair starts out as a completely flat honeycomb and then unfolds into a semi-chair shape. The first person who sits in it has an important role to...
The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum has received a $10 million gift from the Morton and Barbara Mandel Family Foundation on behalf of longtime trustee and board chair Barbara Mandel and her husband Morton. The gift is the largest in the history of the museum and will support the new Cooper-Hewitt, which opens in fall...
Known for her modern elegance and innovative textiles, 2013 National Design Award winner Behnaz Sarafpour debuted her collection in 2001. Sarafpour brought her classic and refined feminine style to the masses in 2006 by joining Target's GO International line, the first designer to represent the United States in this campaign to merge high fashion and...
The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum today announced a new monthly blog series detailing the story of the Hewitt sisters, Amelia, Sarah, Eleanor, and their family. Co-authored by Margery Masinter, Cooper-Hewitt trustee, and Sue Shutte, historian at Ringwood Manor House Museum in Ringwood, N.J., the blog explores women’s education, design for American industry, life in...
Artist Shinique Smith has been commissioned by the MTA's Arts for Transit program to integrate her art-inspired design into architectural elements of the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot. John Reddick will speak with Smith about how this project evolved, and how this public structure will incorporate contemporary innovations in building technology and art-related enhancement. The...
