Design Across Time: Exploring the Smithsonian’s Design Collection

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is unveiling its permanent collection galleries with Design Across Time: Exploring the Smithsonian’s Design Collection. The landmark presentation showcases a selection of 125 works drawn from Cooper Hewitt’s collection installed throughout the first floor of the museum’s Carnegie Mansion. The exhibition provides visitors with a new thematic take on the collection and expands access to its vast repository of historic and contemporary design, including significant works newly brought out of storage, recent acquisitions on public display for the first time, and canonical objects of American and global design history.

The exhibition is rooted in the idea that design is everywhere, that it serves a civic purpose and that from small objects to larger systems, everyone is an expert user and active participant of the built environment.

Cooper Hewitt has been collecting design since its founding in 1897. The national collection now has more than 215,000 objects spanning six continents and thirty centuries, including product design, architecture, graphic design, fashion and textiles, wallcoverings, and digital and interaction design. From sketches and prototypes to finished products, the collection continues to evolve to represent new areas and ideas of our time, reminding us that design is constantly around us.

This multi-year installation of the permanent collection, which will feature rotations of objects throughout its duration, is organized in six thematic clusters representing some of the many approaches involved in the creative process and often utilized by designers:

Play and Tweak to experiment and iterate ideas

Repeat elements to reinforce messages

Transform materials into sustainable solutions

Show off craftsmanship to create objects of beauty

Simplify complex shapes and information

Cooper Hewitt’s collection is a public resource that belongs to all. We invite you to explore it.

The Substitute is on view as part of Design Across Time.

EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS

Sepia toned paper showing six chalices, most tall and slim like candlesticks, and ornately decorated. — Designs for chalice, late 18th century Giuseppe Barberi (Italian, 1746-1809) Ink and wash on paper Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Museum purchase through gift of various donors, 1901-39-1165 Image: Smithsonian Institution

Golden yellow robe with long sleeves. A tree, leaf, and wooden fence pattern repeats in autumnal colors. — Noh theater costume (Japan), ca. 1800 Silk metallic brocade Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Gift of Eleanor and Sarah Hewitt, from the textile collection of Mrs. Abram Stevens Hewitt, 1931-4-61 Photo: Matt Flynn, Smithsonian Institution

Elongated, patinaed turqoise earthenware cup shaped like an upside down and stretched bell — Lotus-shaped Cup (Egypt) circa 1100 BCE Maker unidentified Colored faience (ceramic frit) Museum purchase through gift of Eleanor and Sarah Hewitt, 1960-29-1 Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum © Smithsonian Institution

Ornate, avant-garde necklace made of bent nails with an iridescent central element surrounded by gold-toned spikes and black feather-like extensions. — Necklace made from hammered nails, 1983 Tone Vigeland (Norwegian, 1938-2024) Steel, gold, silver, mother-of-pearl Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Museum purchase from Decorative Arts Association Acquisition Funds and General Acquisition Endowment, 1984-83-1 Photo: Dave King, Smithsonian Institution

Golden metallic ombre sculpture shaped like antlers fanning upwards and outwards horizontally. — Royal jewel cabinet, 1825-1826 Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory (Sèvres, France) Mahogany, platinum, glass, bronze, gold, hard-paste porcelain, vitreous enamel Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Bequest of the Reverend Alfred Duane Pell, 1991-31-2 Photo: Smithsonian Institution

Poster with a large grey X on a black background with “November” in small white letters at bottom. Includes a thin grey border. — Malcolm X film poster, 1992 Designed by Art Sims (American, b. 1954) of 11:24 Design (Playa Del Rey, CA, USA) Offset lithograph on paper Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Gift of Art Sims, 1996-92-9 Photo: Matt Flynn, Smithsonian Institution

Repetive images of scenes of the human experience in black and white on a bright yellow background. — Harlem Toile de Jouy wallpaper, 2006 Designed by Sheila Bridges (American, b. 1964), Made by Studio Printworks (Hoboken, NJ, USA) Ink on coated paper Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Gift of Studio Printworks, 2007-42-1 Photo: Matt Flynn, Smithsonian Institution

Landscape photograph of the tip of the New York City skyline. Edited to be saturated with contrasted black, white, gray, and green colors. — New Urban Ground, 2009 Susannah Churchill Drake (American, b. 1965) and ARO (New York, NY, USA) Proposal for Rising Currents exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Digital print on paper Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Museum purchase from Architecture Research Office and from General Acquisitions Endowment Fund, 2013-52-2 Photo: Matt Flynn, Smithsonian Institution

Umbrella shaped orange lamp held by slim curving steel c-shaped platform creating the illusion that the lamp is floating. — Anywhere lamp, 1951 Designed by Greta von Nessen (American, b. Sweden, 18981974), Manufactured by Nessen Studios, Inc. (New York, NY, USA) Aluminum, steel, Bakelite, rubber cord Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Gift of George R. Kravis II, 2014-25-3 Photo: Matt Flynn, Smithsonian Institution

Textile printed with vibrant repeating pattern of high heeled shoes in bright greens and black on white. — Style Stiletto textile, 2011 Designed by Marjo Penninx (Dutch, b. 1965), Manufactured by Vlisco (Helmond, Netherlands) Wax-resist printed on cotton plain weave Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Gift of Vlisco, 2015-1-18 Photo: Smithsonian Institution

Cylindrical stool formed from an upright bundle of thick twisted rope sections dipped in black rubber at the base, banded around the middle with a vibrant, colorful patterned ribbon sleeve with orange fringe at the bottom. — Roping Stool made from rope and textile industry waste (designed 2011, made 2017) Stephen Burks (American, b. 1969) Rope, rayon, linen ribbon, braid, fringe, plastic Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Gift of Dedar SpA, 2017-28-3 Photo: Matt Flynn, Smithsonian Institution

Large, white vase with a carved leaf like design on the surface. There is a large opening at the top, while the vase tapers down at the base. — A Very Large Nazuna vase, 2016 Hitomi Hosono (Japanese, active London, b. 1978) Molded, carved, and hand-built porcelain Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Museum purchase from the Charles E. Sampson Memorial Fund and through gift of Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Barbara E. Deisroth, Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, and Martha Alexander, 2017-44-1 Photo: Matt Flynn, Smithsonian Institution

A red helmet shaped television with a square base with control knobs and an antenna at the top. — Videosphere Model 3240 portable television, 1970 Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (Yokohama, Japan) Plastic, acrylic, metal, chrome-plated metal Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Gift of George R. Kravis II, 2018-22-51 Photo: Matt Flynn, Smithsonian Institution

Digital print font of bold red text on a white background. The text reads "Bungee." There is a white inline in the center of the bold, all caps lettering. — Bungee digital typeface, 2011-2016 David Jonathan Ross (American, b. 1985) Digital font Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Collected from the public domain by Cooper Hewitt in collaboration with the designer, 2024-23-1/4

ENHANCE YOUR VISIT

Enhance your visit with insights into the design process from designers and other experts featured in the exhibition. View the Bloomberg Connects guide online or in the free arts and culture app.

EXHIBITiON DESIGN

The dynamic installation is designed by JA Projects with graphic design by Pacific. From an introductory concentration of objects anchored in the central gallery, the exhibition extends through two dramatic axis vitrines that cut across the sequence of first-floor galleries. Combining a rich palette of textures from traditional and contemporary materials and leaning heavily on a graphic system of timeless collection object silhouettes, the display escapes traditional chronological readings. Instead, the presentation provides thematic groupings of a global collection that spans geographies, materials, and time periods, ranging from an ancient Egyptian lotus-shaped cup to the recently acquired Toots Zynsky vessel, Aurifero II (2023).

ACCESSIBILITY

Various resources are available to support your visit to Design Across Time. Image descriptions of objects on view are available on the exhibition’s accessibility webpage and in person in the Large Print Label booklet. Large-print labels and other sensory materials will be available for use in the galleries. Compatible in-gallery digital interactives will have screen reader capability. Learn more about accessibility at Cooper Hewitt.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Design Across Time is organized by Matilda McQuaid, Acting Curatorial Director; Susan Brown, Acting Head of Textiles; Emily Orr, Acting Head of Product Design and Decorative Arts; and Julie Pastor, Curatorial Assistant, with the support of all members of the curatorial, conservation, registrar, exhibitions and director’s office departments.

Exhibition design by JA Projects. Graphic design by Pacific.

SUPPORT

Design Across Time: Exploring the Smithsonian’s Design Collection received major support from Jon and Shigemi Iwata, and Lisa Roberts and David Seltzer. Additional generous support has been made by Amita and Purnendu Chatterjee, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Foundation, Irene Au and Bradley Horowitz, and Chris and Irma Fralic. This project received funding from the Smithsonian’s “Our Shared Future: 250,” a Smithsonian-wide initiative supported by private philanthropy and created to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary and advance the Smithsonian vision for the next 250 years.