In last month’s Cooper Hewitt Short Story, wallcoverings curator Greg Herringshaw introduced different styles of wallcoverings collected by the Hewitt sisters that are now housed in Cooper Hewitt’s expansive collection. This month, Forrest Pelsue, publishing master’s fellow in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies at Parsons Paris, takes us on a journey to 1939...

In last month’s Short Story, Emily Orr, Cooper Hewitt’s assistant curator of modern and contemporary design, wrote about the history of store window display.  In recognition of National Button Day on November 16, this month’s story celebrates the Cooper Hewitt collection of buttons. Margery Masinter, Trustee, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Sue Shutte, Historian at...

On March 16th, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum hosted a fascinating demonstration of the process of a traditional form of Japanese stencil carving  (katagami) and its use in the technique of resist-dyeing textiles (katazome) at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Center in Harlem. The event had its origins in a visit that Yuki Ikuta, Assistant Curator of the...

I’ve long admired Donald Deskey’s drawing, Design for "Sportshack" (1940) in the Cooper Hewitt’s collection. When I first saw it, I immediately imagined what it might be like to live in this elegantly proportioned little gem of a house. As one half of a couple sharing our own micro-apartment,  I understand the challenges of paring...

Celebrated fashion designer Sena Yang, creator of her namesake line SENA, led a two-session fashion workshop at Cooper-Hewitt for high-school students. The workshop was an exciting opportunity for students to create original prints and a concept for a collection based on their own designs.   Sena started the workshop with a bang when she shared...

Richard Cranch Greenleaf (1887–1961) was a prolific collector of lace, costume, and textiles. To a large extent, the strength of Cooper-Hewitt’s collection in these areas can be attributed to his generosity. Starting in 1950, Greenleaf began donating groups of lace, small accessories such as purses and coifs, and finely woven European silks and embroidered textiles....

A short video explaining youth participation in shaping Cooper-Hewitt's effort to make its vast collection web-accessible. NYC teens work with museum staff to select objects, tag them in their own words, and suggest features to make the virtual museum system more youth-friendly.

Digital (youth) interns tag objects in the Museum collection! Through the on-going program A City of Neighborhoods project the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum selected 5 students as digital (youth) interns. During a one-week internship youth met with curators at the Museum to discuss the e-museum collection and learn about the curatorial departments. The Digital Interns...

It’s been just over a year since the stunning Rodarte exhibition here at Cooper-Hewitt. Known for finding inspiration in unexpected things, the prolific Rodarte duo have just released a fashion film to accompany their Spring 2011 collection. It’s inspired by 1970s northern California, redwood forests, the gold rush and various asian traditions. Titled after a...

Only a few short weeks left to see Ted Muehling Selects: Lobmeyr Glass from the Permanent Collection. Watch designer Ted Muehling and curator Sarah Coffin as they discuss highlights from the exhibition in this 5 minute walkthrough:   Curated by Ted Muehling, the exhibition draws from the museum’s recent acquisition of 163 rare examples of...

  Over the past several weeks, I explored the Cooper-Hewitt Museum Design Museum Library’s collection of illustrated children’s books as part of the Arts Intern program through Studio in a School. During my time in the Library, I have discovered seemingly endless treasures in the children’s book collection, including a vast range of illustrative styles,...

Here’s some impressive trivia: Q – How many Museums are there in the Smithsonian? A – 19, including the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Q – How many objects in the collections? A – 137,000,000. Q – How many visitors last year? A – 30,000,000. Q – How many website visits? A – 188,000,000. Yes, those...

Cooper-Hewitt Staff   T-Shirt Design I was surprised when I arrived at work yesterday morning when Pete (Ron Petersen), who makes the place clean and ready everyday, said cheerfully, “Great day for a photo-op!” I had no idea what he was talking about. It made sense in the middle of the morning, when Jennifer Northrop,...

Personally, I am partial to Richard Meier’s approach to architecture. According to Meier, a building is an act of “willful artificiality;” a “man-made” spatial construct that functions as a receptacle for experiencing the world of nature. Meier’s white walls act as nature’s film screen capturing ever-changing patterns of reflected color and light. While Meier credits...

Just in time for the marathon eating season to begin, Cooper-Hewitt’s exhibition Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table is open at the Winterthur, a fantastic museum of decorative arts located in Delaware’s Brandywine Valley. The Winterthur is a curator’s dream destination, with its astonishing collection of historic objects and its richly stocked...