Floor 1 | Going Home

First Floor Kiosk

Welcome to floor one of Making Home. We are currently standing in the main entrance of Cooper Hewitt in the Great Hall— a grand foyer adorned with elaborate wood paneling on the walls and carpeted in a checkered pattern. In a moment you will explore the different rooms of this exhibition, but first let’s orient ourselves in the space. You have arrived at these visual descriptions via QR code that you scanned either from the exhibition brochure or the first floor kiosk.  The kiosk sits in the wide walkway, to the left of the main entrance steps, and is a large wooden stand in the shape of two four-sided pyramids with a flat top stacked on top of each other. The kiosk holds large print label binders, brochures, and a touch map with braille text for wayfinding. The main entrance is behind us and to the left. The grand staircase is to the left of the main entrance. If we were to travel to our right, we would move down to the end of the corridor where there is an entry area to the Carnegie Library with the installation The Underground Library, and within the library is Mr. Carnegie’s private office where the installation Game Room is situated. If we were to visit the rooms opposite of the main entrance we would find the following: moving east to west is Vues/Views in the original Music Room, Welcome to Territory in the Reception Room, Living Room: Orlean, Virginia in the Dining Room, The Offering in the mansion’s Breakfast Room, and ending with the Conservatory where you’ll find Ebb + Flow. If we were to travel to our left we would find the visitor experience desk on the right, and a seating area with couches on the left. The space straight ahead is the Spoon Gallery with the installation Recollection above on the ceiling, the elevator that will bring us to the upper and lower floors on the right, and the installation A Place to Simply, BE in what was the former Carnegie Powder Room on the left. Just beyond the Powder Room ahead is the Cooper Hewitt Shop. 

As you explore each room you will find QR codes to give you a visual description of the space and additional information around each installation on the plinths. QR codes are located in the lower left corner of all project labels. 

Installations

THE HOUSE THAT FREEDOMS BUILT

Three white single-room structures with peaked roofs structures sit in a row near the entrance to a building made with red brick and carved sand-brown stone. The white structures are pierced and carved into dense, ornamental, filigree-like patterns.
LA VAUGHN BELLE

FAHARA: CHICAGO IN VIEW

Three textile panels hang against a wall of ornate wood moldings. The central panel has text reading, “Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost.” Drawn heads of two people are below and the rest is blocks of patterns.
ROBERT EARL PAIGE

THE UNDERGROUND LIBRARY: AN ARCHIVE OF OUR TRUTH

Curving, organically shaped brown couches and similarly sinuous sculptures are displayed a room with an ornately carved ceiling and works of art hung over and between wall paneling. Exhibition text on pale purple is on a lectern across the room.
BLACK ARTISTS + DESIGNERS GUILD (BADG)

GAME ROOM

Formed with what appears to be fluorescent-toned, thick cords, a hot pink settee and grape-purple table sit in a room with wood paneling. A square game board fills the top surface of the low table.
LIAM LEE, TOMMY MISHIMA

VUES/VIEWS

A screen floats in a darkened room with gold gilt ornament on white paneling. On the screen, a Black man looks off to our left, his lips parted. He has a mustache and short black hair. He is in front of painted landscape with mountains and trees.
AMIE SIEGEL

WELCOME TO TERRITORY

Three Lenape capes made of textiles and feathers hang high from the ceiling like chandeliers in a light-filled room with ornate molding, leafy wallpaper, and a wood parquet floor.
LENAPE CENTER, JOE BAKER

LIVING ROOM: ORLEAN, VA

A wooden chair, footstool, sofa, side table, armoire, piano, and other furniture are gathered on a platform that takes up most of an elegant room, which has intricately carved wood paneling on the ceiling and walls and a parquet floor.
DAVÓNE TINES, HUGH HAYDEN, ZACK WINOKUR

THE OFFERING

A dining table is set with vividly colored and boldly patterned placemats and napkins. Chairs, settees, the area rug, and curtains have similarly striking designs. The room is paneled in wood beneath gilded wallpaper and a carved ceiling.
NICOLE CROWDER, HADIYA WILLIAMS

EBB + FLOW

Dropbox Link A glass-enclosed room with a glass domed ceiling curves around us. Benches line the glass walls, which are framed with laurel-green molding. Two stations along the benches have headsets. Sun pours onto brick and wood buildings and trees outside.
ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE IN EVERGLADES (AIRIE)

RECOLLECTION

A barrel-vaulted ceiling, like a curved tunnel, along a corridor is mottled with marine blue. Puffy white blossoms float among shimmering gold ripples. The corridor is lined with gray doors and paneling below.
JOIRI MINAYA

A ROOM TO SIMPLY, BE

RENÉE STOUT

< Back to All Floors