Current Exhibitions

Cochineal on view at Cooper Hewitt. Pink and purple tones abound in this exhibition of design objects set in an all-white domestic interior in Carnegie Mansion. The objects on view include a pink wallpaper with continent-like black forms mounted on top, a quilt, and a lamp that looks like it's wearing a bubblegum pink wig.
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Nature—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial

A curtain of lightbulbs suspended from the ceiling

FIRST FLOOR OPEN Through Jan. 20, 2020

Co-organized with Cube design museum in the Netherlands, the exhibition features groundbreaking works from designers across all disciplines who are collaborating with scientists, engineers, farmers, environmentalists, and nature itself to design a more harmonious and regenerative future.

Learn more about Nature—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial. 

Face values: exploring artificial intelligence

A woman interacts with a screen where blobby cut outs of facial features float around with white lines going everywhere

Through May 17, 2020

Presented in Cooper Hewitt’s Process Lab, Face Values: Exploring Artificial Intelligence is an immersive installation that explores the pervasive but often hidden role of facial-detection technology in contemporary society.

Learn more about Face Values: Exploring Artificial Intelligence.

Herbert Bayer: Bauhaus Master

In profile with a startled expression, portrait of a man with dark hair, dark eyes, and slender dark moustache. German text is superimposed on the image. The name Herbert Bayer can be read.

THROUGH april 5, 2020

Coinciding with the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, this exhibition presents rare works by the groundbreaking graphic designer Herbert Bayer (1900–1985). As a student and teacher at the Bauhaus, Bayer helped shape the discourse of modern graphic design. After leaving the Bauhaus in 1928, he worked in Berlin, where he designed commercial advertising and typefaces. He emigrated in 1938 to the US, where he worked as a designer and became a lifelong spokesman for the Bauhaus, amplifying the school’s mystique.

Learn more about Herbert Bayer: Bauhaus Master.

Wyss Institute Selects

Diptych. Left: Illustration of a submarine zooming out of a white seashell against a pale green background. Right: In the microscopic scale, tentacles grab a glowy green orb.

THROUGH MARCH 8, 2020

Wyss Institute Selects is the 18th installment in the exhibition series that invites designers, artists, architects and public figures to examine and interpret the museum’s collection. The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University uses nature’s design principles to develop bioinspired technologies and commercial products that will bring about positive impact worldwide. Wyss will present their vision of Biofuturism, which in this exhibition will be inspired by nature and Futurism in design and art.

Learn more about Wyss Institute Selects.

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.

Nature by Design: Selections from the Permanent Collection

Triptych. Watercolor-like illustration of three red fish swimming in pale green water. Rough brown vessel in smooth brown pouch. Orchid model photographed against black background.

NOW ON VIEW

To accompany the special exhibition, Nature—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, Nature by Design presents a rotating selection of extraordinary design drawn from Cooper Hewitt’s collection of over 210,000 objects, inviting visitors to discover how nature and design have intersected in the past and continue to converge in our world.

Learn more about Nature by Design: Selections From The Permanent Collection.

student projects on Nature

Now on view on the Ground Floor, an exhibition of winners, finalists,  honorable mentions from Cooper Hewitt’s fourth annual National High School Design Competition, which challenged students to design (or redesign) a nature-based solution to a global problem.

Exhibition supporters

Nature—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial is made possible by support from The Ainslie Foundation. Additional support is provided by Amita and Purnendu Chatterjee, the August Heckscher Exhibition Fund, the Esme Usdan Exhibition Endowment Fund, and the Creative Industries Fund NL.

Funding is also provided by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York as part of the Dutch Culture USA program, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Nature by Design is made possible by major support from Amita and Purnendu Chatterjee. Additional support is provided by the Cooper Hewitt Master’s Program Fund.

Wyss Institute Selects is made possible by the Marks Family Foundation Endowment Fund.

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

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.

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

The National High School Design Competition: Nature of Design is made possible by the generous support of Target.