New York’s Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, has reopened after a three-year renovation. It is housed in the former residence of Scottish American industrialist Andrew Carnegie. The 64-room museum provides a historic backdrop to the displays.
There are 10 inaugural exhibitions and installations, many of which draw from the museum’s permanent collection of more than 210,000 objects. There is now 60% more exhibition space, improved display flexibility, new systems to reduce exhibition installation times and better public access throughout the building.
The work of the 13 design firms involved in the transformation of the Carnegie mansion is documented in one of the opening exhibitions.
There is a big emphasis on technology and interactivity in the revamped museum, with visitors able to explore the exhibitions digitally by drawing their own designs in the Immersion Room and solve real-world design problems in the Process Lab. There is also The Pen, a digital tool that allows visitors to collect objects and save information about their visit.
The new gallery spaces include the 6,000 sq foot Barbara and Morton Mandel Design Gallery. This houses the Tools: Extending Our Reach exhibition, which explores the relationship between human beings and the instruments we invent and employ. Other inaugural exhibitions include Beautiful Users, which shows the shift towards user-centric design based on observations of human anatomy and behaviour.
How will the emphasis on technology diversify visitors?
Caroline Baumann: We are giving the Carnegie mansion back to the people. We have been open less than a month and have already seen a new variety of visitor. There’s also been a dip in the average age.
What is different about the visitor interactivity?
The line we use is “play designer”, which is about breaking down the walls of the traditional museum where you’re told to keep your hands by your sides. With The Pen, we will be inviting people to write on the tables to start a conversation. It becomes your very own design museum collection, which you can revisit every time you return.
How has the design process been brought to life?
The first floor is allocated to a design primer called the Process Lab so that people can learn the basics and understand what happens from the moment an idea is conceived, right through to production. It’s a working lab and we have people in there testing out ways to better illuminate the space.
Why was it important to include the renovation process in the opening exhibitions?
More than a dozen of America’s top designers worked on this programme and we wanted them to show visitors what they were tasked with and how they solved problems. So the downstairs gallery has big panels dedicated to each designer in the team.
How has the revamp remained sympathetic to the building’s history?
We were thoughtful about how we did this as we wanted to be good stewards of a historic building. Andrew Carnegie would be pleased that this building is the centre for design innovation as he was so forward-thinking himself.
What is the standout exhibition of the new space?
You cannot view just one – it’s a seamless experience. The first floor is a primer and the second floor opens your eyes to the breadth of the collection. Then there’s the explosion of tools on the third floor, underscoring human ingenuity, and finally on the fourth floor there’s the impact of design.
Alexandra Genova is a freelance journalist. Caroline Baumann is the director of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
There are 10 inaugural exhibitions and installations, many of which draw from the museum’s permanent collection of more than 210,000 objects. There is now 60% more exhibition space, improved display flexibility, new systems to reduce exhibition installation times and better public access throughout the building.
The work of the 13 design firms involved in the transformation of the Carnegie mansion is documented in one of the opening exhibitions.
There is a big emphasis on technology and interactivity in the revamped museum, with visitors able to explore the exhibitions digitally by drawing their own designs in the Immersion Room and solve real-world design problems in the Process Lab. There is also The Pen, a digital tool that allows visitors to collect objects and save information about their visit.
The new gallery spaces include the 6,000 sq foot Barbara and Morton Mandel Design Gallery. This houses the Tools: Extending Our Reach exhibition, which explores the relationship between human beings and the instruments we invent and employ. Other inaugural exhibitions include Beautiful Users, which shows the shift towards user-centric design based on observations of human anatomy and behaviour.
How will the emphasis on technology diversify visitors?
Caroline Baumann: We are giving the Carnegie mansion back to the people. We have been open less than a month and have already seen a new variety of visitor. There’s also been a dip in the average age.
What is different about the visitor interactivity?
The line we use is “play designer”, which is about breaking down the walls of the traditional museum where you’re told to keep your hands by your sides. With The Pen, we will be inviting people to write on the tables to start a conversation. It becomes your very own design museum collection, which you can revisit every time you return.
How has the design process been brought to life?
The first floor is allocated to a design primer called the Process Lab so that people can learn the basics and understand what happens from the moment an idea is conceived, right through to production. It’s a working lab and we have people in there testing out ways to better illuminate the space.
Why was it important to include the renovation process in the opening exhibitions?
More than a dozen of America’s top designers worked on this programme and we wanted them to show visitors what they were tasked with and how they solved problems. So the downstairs gallery has big panels dedicated to each designer in the team.
How has the revamp remained sympathetic to the building’s history?
We were thoughtful about how we did this as we wanted to be good stewards of a historic building. Andrew Carnegie would be pleased that this building is the centre for design innovation as he was so forward-thinking himself.
What is the standout exhibition of the new space?
You cannot view just one – it’s a seamless experience. The first floor is a primer and the second floor opens your eyes to the breadth of the collection. Then there’s the explosion of tools on the third floor, underscoring human ingenuity, and finally on the fourth floor there’s the impact of design.
Alexandra Genova is a freelance journalist. Caroline Baumann is the director of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Project data
- Cost £60m
- Architects Gluckman Mayner Architects; Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners; Diller Scofidio + Renfro
- Exhibition design Thinc
- Visitor experience suppliers GE; Sistelnetworks; Undercurrent; Ideum
- Graphic identity Pentagram; Village
- Landscape architect Hood Design
- Main contractor Consigli Construction
- Display cases Goppion
