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...
Little is known about this dress-weight cotton fabric, which arrived at the museum in a padded envelope with no return address. It was probably an inexpensive “novelty print” intended for the home-sewing market. This piece had been previously made up as a dirndl skirt, which requires very little shaping, so there is an uncut rectangular...
In last month’s Cooper Hewitt Short Story, the exuberant personality of Robert Winthrop Chanler unfolded in a large gift of illustrated books to Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library. May’s Short Story celebrates the curatorial vision that brought a professional edge to the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, that of Calvin Hathaway. Margery...
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...
Interaction design is not just about the way an individual interacts with his or her surroundings, it is about bringing people together and starting conversations. On February 4th at Cooper-Hewitt’s uptown Design Center, this was the theme for our group of Design Scholars’ most recent workshop. We held our first meeting with a few user...
Can you explain a little bit about the type of work you do here at Cooper-Hewitt? I manage the K-12 school programs and all tours for the museum. I supervise both the Design Educators, who provide our school audiences with tours and workshops, and the Docents, who provide our public and private tours. In addition,...
In this ten-minute gallery tour, curator Ellen Lupton talks about indie publishing, typographic spectacle, non-normative software use, and design as fiction. The exhibition explores some of the most vibrant sectors and genres of graphic design from 2000 to the present. Last day to catch this exhibition is September 3rd, 2012.
The latest in our 4 Questions 4 series interview Kevin Palmer, founding partner of London-based Kin Design. Kin Design is perhaps best known for their work for the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, recent work for the National Maritime Museum (London), and their custom covers for Wallpaper* Magazine. Seated in the beautiful North...
Amethyst, diamond, emerald, jade, onyx, ruby and sapphire—the very words conjure up an exotic world of beauty, fashion, mystery, and intrigue. Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels provides ample evidence that the celebrated jeweler does indeed exemplify that world. Marriage brought the Arpels and Van Cleef families together in 1896, leading...
Design is about people, not things… Not just a catchphrase, it’s the key to Smart Design’s success. Over 90% of their designs have been brought to market, an impressive statistic for any industry. Their formula is simple: understanding the differing needs of people results in design that is truly universal. Cooper-Hewitt Members enjoyed a ‘fireside...
2010 National Design Award winners participate in a panel discussion about their inspiration and drive as designers and the state of contemporary design in America. Moderated by Stephen Doyle, Communication Design Winner. Speakers include:
Tom Dair, Smart Design, Product Design Winner
Stephen Kieran, KieranTimberlake, Architecture Design Winner
Ellen Neises, James Corner Field Operations, Landscape Design Winner
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Jake Barton of Local Projects, National Design Award Finalist in 2010 and 2006, warmly welcomed Cooper-Hewitt Members for a behind-the-scenes look at his media-design firm. A great story teller himself, Jake spoke of the clever uses of information design, media production, interactivity, and social media to both solicit and tell stories. Local Projects was the...
For more than forty years Jan Gehl has helped to transform urban environments around the world based on his research into the ways people actually use—or could use—the spaces where they live and work. In this revolutionary book, Cities for People, Gehl presents his latest work creating (or recreating) cityscapes on a human scale. He...
Over the next two weeks on the Cooper-Hewitt Design Blog, students from an interdisciplinary graduate-level course on the Triennial taught by the Triennial curatorial team blog their impressions and inspirations of the current exhibition,‘Why Design Now?’. This year the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s Triennial: Why Design Now? explores topics of sustainable design. Current...
New York City is widely considered an ecological nightmare—a wasteland of concrete and high-rises, diesel fumes and traffic jams, garbage and pollution. But, in the groundbreaking work of contrarian environmental thinking that is Green Metropolis, David Owen declares New York City as the greenest community in America. In Green Metropolis, David Owen conceives a new...
