Previous Exhibitions

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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Featuring nearly 150 brooches, necklaces, bracelets, and rings created by seminal designers from Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America, Jewelry of Ideas illuminates the radical conceptual and material developments in jewelry design that have transformed the field. Beginning with mid-20th-century American and European pioneers who pushed the boundaries of form and material, the exhibition traces the evolution of jewelry up ...

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Ilonka Karasz (American, b. Hungary, 1896–1981) is an important yet overlooked figure in 20th-century design. During her long and prolific career, she worked in a wide variety of media, producing designs for wallcoverings, textiles, carpets, lighting, ceramics, metalwork, toys, and furniture. She is perhaps most well known for her popular cover illustrations for the New...

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Master craftsmanship, luxurious materials, and sensuous forms are highlighted in an exhibition of objects designed to amplify the pleasure of their use. Design disguises what we wish to remain private, tempts us with luxuries large and small, feeds sensuous appetites, and—should we envy someone else’s possessions—eases our discontent with clever imitations. Pride, greed, lust, envy,...

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Esperanza Spalding Selects is 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. Musician and four-time Grammy Award-winner Esperanza Spalding creates thought-provoking juxtapositions of collection objects to show how material evolves into different forms as new designers adapt ...

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The first U.S. major exhibition of the Dutch designer Joris Laarman and his multidisciplinary team, known for their pioneering and elegant applications of digital technologies. Working at the intersection of design, art, and science, Joris Laarman Lab is abolishing traditional distinctions between the natural and machine made, the decorative and functional to produce design of flawless beauty and technical ingenuity.

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Pushing the boundaries of materials, making, and form, 43 recently acquired  design objects  are installed in the museum’s Process Galleries, along with documentation of the designers’ creative process. The working sketches, prototypes, and videos featured in the exhibition elucidate the making of these objects and demonstrate how technology such as 3-D printing enables the fabrication of impossibly...

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An installation in the museum’s Process Lab, Citizen Design invites visitors to engage, empathize, and help envision a better America. Inspired by the Gray Area project, a Philadelphia-based community engagement initiative featured in the exhibition By the People: Designing a Better America (which ran from September 30, 2016 to February 26, 2017), Citizen Design encourages civic dialogue at...

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A Depression-era, monumental batik mural entitled The World of Radio is the focus of this exhibition of iconic radios, radio design drawings, and photographs from the early twentieth century through  the present day. Designed by Arthur Gordon Smith, the mural celebrates the career of Jessica Dragonette, one of radio’s most popular personalities of the 1930s. On view for the...

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