The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s

Through August 20, 2017

A multi-media experience of more than 400 examples of interior design, industrial design, decorative art, jewelry, fashion, and architecture, as well as related music and film, The Jazz Age gives full expression to the decade’s diversity and dynamism.

Learn more about The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s.

Jeweled Splendors of the Art Deco era: The Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan Collection

Through August 27, 2017

To accompany The Jazz Age, a focused installation of art deco luxury objects on view in the museum’s Teak Room features more than 100 extraordinary design objects, including cigarette cases, compacts, timepieces, and vanity cases, created by Europe and America’s premier jewelry houses.

Learn more about Jeweled Splendors of the Art Deco Era.

Immersion Room

Cooper Hewitt’s extraordinary collection of wallcoverings is featured in a new high-tech space, the Immersion Room, offering visitors the unprecedented experience of using the Pen to select digital images of wallpapers or sketch their own design and then project them onto the walls at full scale to see their impact. More than an entertaining interactive experience, the Immersion Room gives museum visitors their first opportunity to discover Cooper Hewitt’s wallcoverings as they were intended to be viewed.

Learn more about the Immersion Room.

Designing the new cooper hewitt

The museum itself is a grand design object, as shown in the ground-floor exhibition Designing the New Cooper Hewitt. Design briefs, sketches, photographs, blueprints and other illustrations from the team of designers reveals the process behind three years of renovation and transformation at Cooper Hewitt.

Making | Breaking: New Arrivals

Through October 29, 2017

More than forty recent contemporary acquisitions from the museum’s permanent collection, as well as sketches, prototypes, and videos illuminating the designers’ groundbreaking design thinking. These new designs push the boundaries of materials, making, and form.

Learn more about Making | Breaking.

Process Lab: Citizen Design

Through September 24, 2017

Process Lab installations give visitors firsthand experiences with the activities designers use to solve problems and develop new ideas. Now on view, Citizen Design invites visitors to engage, empathize, and help envision a better America.

Learn more about Citizen Design.

Hewitt Sisters Collect

The first exhibition to share the remarkable story of Eleanor and Sarah Hewitt, who in 1897 established a museum within Cooper Union, recognizes their central role in the museum’s founding and genesis of the core collection.

Learn more about Hewitt Sisters Collect.

Esperanza Spalding Selects

through january 7, 2018

The 15th installation of Cooper Hewitt’s Selects exhibition series in which designers, artists, architects, and public figures are invited to examine and interpret the museum’s collection of more than 210,000 objects. Through her curation of nearly 40 drawings, prints, textiles, jewelry, and furniture, as well as works from the Smithsonian Design Library, musician and four-time Grammy Award-winner Esperanza Spalding explores how design—like music—both evolves and devolves in the process of transforming.

Learn more about Esperanza Spalding Selects.

The World of Radio

through September 24, 2017

An exhibition of iconic radios, radio design drawings, and photographs from the early twentieth century through the present day accompany the installation of a rarely seen monumental textile illustrating radio’s early history.

Learn more about The World of Radio.

Models & Prototypes Gallery

The second floor of Cooper Hewitt features a Models & Prototypes gallery, where rotating installations provide insights into the important role of models in the design process. Currently, the gallery showcases the exceptional models of staircases donated to Cooper Hewitt by Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw.

Learn more about the Models & Prototypes gallery.

Exhibition supporters

The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s is made possible by the generous support of Madeleine K. Rudin and Grant S. Johnson in memory of Jack Rudin.

Additional major support is provided by Amita and Purnendu Chatterjee, Robert and Helen Appel, Helen and Edward Hintz, and the Secretary of the Smithsonian and the Smithsonian National Board. Funding is also provided by the August Heckscher Exhibition Fund, The Masinter Family Foundation, Shelby and Frederick Gans, Nion McEvoy, Marlene Nathan Meyerson Family Foundation, Ehrenkranz Fund, Esme Usdan Exhibition Endowment Fund, Siegelson, New York, Cooper Hewitt Master’s Program Fund, Karen and Joe Levine, and The Felicia Fund.

Esperanza Spalding Selects is made possible by the Marks Family Foundation Endowment Fund. In-kind support for the site-specific installation is provided by ZGF Architects. Piano provided by Steinway & Sons.

Digital Experience supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Exhibitions of the permanent collection are made possible by major support from Nancy Marks. Additional support is provided by Elizabeth and Lee Ainslie and the Henry Luce Foundation.

Hewitt Sisters Collect is made possible by generous support from Nancy Marks. Additional support is provided by Margery and Edgar Masinter and the Smithsonian Women’s Committee.

The Immersion Room is made possible by major support from Amita and Purnendu Chatterjee.

 

Process Lab is made possible by major support from Alice Gottesman.