Previous Exhibitions

Moustiers Ceramics: Gifts from the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Collection highlights the decorative and broad impact of innovative patterning and variety of forms produced in tin-glazed earthenware in Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, France during the 18th century. When King Louis XIV issued a series of edicts requiring French nobility to melt their silver table services to fund French war...

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Design has had an enduring impact on the rituals and customs of dining. The centerpiece for Tablescapes: Designs for Dining, which explores three distinct dining moments, is Cooper Hewitt’s magnificent surtout de table. On view for the first time in 30 years, this newly conserved masterpiece, designed by Pierre-Philippe Thomire for the stepson of Napoleon Bonaparte, Eugène de Beauharnais, exemplifies ...

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The Road Ahead: Reimagining Mobility presents 40 design projects inspired by the technologies that will change how we move people, goods, and services in the future. With the rapid convergence of data and design innovation, cities are becoming smarter and transport options are multiplying. The Road Ahead encourages visitors to creatively consider how droids, bots, drones, and more can make ...

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Richard Landis (American, born 1931) is a master weaver who pursued a nearly lifelong investigation of pattern and color. His double-cloth textiles are complex systems of closely related full-tones and half-tones of color, organized into abstract geometries of endless variation. In Landis’s weavings, small, medium, and large rectangles and squares repeat in ever-changing order, and every possible color combination is ...

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Saturated explores the elusive, complex phenomenon of color perception and how it has captivated artists, designers, scientists, and sages. Featuring over 190 objects spanning antiquity to the present from the extraordinary collections of Smithsonian Libraries and Cooper Hewitt, the exhibition reveals how designers apply the theories of the world’s greatest color thinkers to bring order and excitement to the visual ...

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Explore experimental works and practical solutions designed to inspire wonder and new ways of accessing our world. Wander through a scented snowstorm, play a furry instrument in a Tactile Orchestra, investigate the sonic properties of glass, and experience many more multisensory experiences from some of the world’s most creative thinkers, including Christopher Brosius, KunstLAB Arnhem, Studio Roos Meerman, Maya+Rouvelle, and ...

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Bob Greenberg is the sixteenth guest curator of the Selects series, which invites designers, artists, writers, and cultural figures to explore and respond to the permanent collection. A 2003 National Design Award winner for Communication Design and founder of the international design innovation company R/GA, Greenberg has been a pioneer of the advertising and communications industry for four decades. To ...

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There has been a surge of design with and by people with a wide range of physical, cognitive, and sensory abilities. Fueled by advances in research, technology, and fabrication, this proliferation of functional, life-enhancing products is creating unprecedented access in homes, schools, workplaces, and the world at large. Access+Ability features over 70 innovative designs developed in the last decade. From ...

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Passion for the Exotic: Japonism explores the newfound influence of Japan on Western design in the late 19th century. A closed society until 1854, Japan ended its self-imposed isolation after American Commodore Matthew C. Perry led a fleet of armed steamships into Japanese ports and secured a trade treaty. Subsequently, Japanese exports such as metalwork, ivories,...

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