Making design: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum collection

Abstract

'Making design' marks the transformative renovation of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and signifies an entirely new way to experience a museum and its collection. Cooper Hewitt possesses an extraordinarily diverse collection--totaling more than 210,000 objects--and is the only museum in the United States devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary works from around the world, spanning thirty centuries. Designed by Irma Boom, and an object in itself, visible in the dark and in the light, the book expresses the museum's primary goal--to inspire people to see how design impacts their lives. The 1145 collection objects and fifty-four essays, drawn from new scholarship, weave parallel narratives throughout the book. Boom's visual sequences encourage looking at objects as well as making connections. This playful and unexpected jaunt through the collection embraces the user-centered experiences found on the dynamic website and in the galleries of the new Cooper Hewitt.