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Sepia toned postcard with man sketching at drafting table with ornate fireplace in back. Top of postcard reads "Le Style Guimard"
Hector Guimard’s Standard-Construction System
A photo album in Cooper Hewitt’s collection documents the construction of a prototype house in Paris, France, that demonstrates the principles of Standard-Construction, a patented modular building system designed by French architect Hector Guimard in the early 20th century. Like many architects of his time, Guimard explored the possibility for standardization and prefabrication to streamline...
Mud Frontier: Architecture at the Borderlands
Thanks to support from the Smithsonian Latino Initiative, we are thrilled to offer the entire film for free. For audio descriptions, please visit https://youtu.be/YZldXBwtuCk   Set in the remote San Luis Valley of Colorado, Mud Frontier: Architecture at the Borderlands is a feature-length documentary film that follows design studio Rael San Fratello’s experimentation with 3D-printing technology and...
Store Stories: Exploring the History & Design of Retail
The 19th-century department store and its successor, the modern mall, have continually evolved to attract and keep consumer attention for decades. Critic Alexandra Lange and Cooper Hewitt curator Emily Orr examine design’s leading role in the development and cultural impact of some of America’s most impressive shopping complexes. Sharing stories from their recent books on...
Watercolor map of New York City
Maptiles by Stamen Design
Stamen Design’s founder Eric Rodenbeck discusses the inspiration behind the design of Watercolor Maptiles, recently acquired by Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Watercolor Maptiles is a web-based open-source mapping tool designed by Stamen Design, a San Francisco-based data visualization and cartography design studio and winner of the 2017 National Design Award in Interaction Design. Launched...
National Design Awards Cities: Detroit
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum hosts this lively conversation among winners and jurors of the 2021 National Design Awards, which recognize innovation and impact and the power of design to change the world. The discussion looks at contemporary challenges and opportunities in design, including equity and climate change, as well as the role of collaboration...
Image shows one scene from a border illustrating Christopher Robin's discovery of the North Pole. Please scroll down for additional information on this object.
Winnie the Pooh
This post was originally published January 18, 2013 and is being reposted in a belated commemoration of A.A. Milne’s birthday and the creation of this wonderful story and its beloved characters. This children’s frieze captures the adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin. This is a woodblock print and was produced within a year...
Image features a wallpaper and matching border containing grass and a landscape view. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
No Surf with this Turf
Wallpapers were rarely designed to be used alone, and fashions in wall treatments changed frequently. In the early twentieth century, wall treatments began to get simpler, consisting of a wallpaper and wide border, or frieze, and it remained popular to paper ceilings into the 1950s. This turf design is part of a matching set of...
Image features rectangular ceramic form showing landscape in relief featuring trees, winding river, and two ravens or rooks. Rook with outstretched wings at center top of plaque, the other perched at bottom, below the Rookwood logo. In various colored mat glazes: dark and light greens, brown, tan, pale sea-green, fuchsia and black. Border and sides in a pale sea-green. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Two Rooks
From the archives, an Object of the Day blog post on Rockwood Pottery, one of the manufacturers featured in the exhibition Passion for the Exotic: Japonism.
Image features group diamond-shaped glass vases of different heights and colors in overlapping arrangement reminiscent of a cityscape. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this group of objects.
Color Landscaping with Glass Vases
Ruutu, Finnish for diamond or square, is the theme that is carried across the five sizes and seven hues of these modular glass vases. The vessels, created by French designers (and brothers), Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for the Finnish glass firm, Iittala, share a minimal, rectilinear style. Like other works by the Bouroullecs, the Ruutu...