Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Bone Armchair by Joris Laarman Lab, 2007

Have We Been Building Chairs All Wrong?

Experimental Dutch designer Joris Laarman uses algorithms and digital technology to innovate through constraint

This resplendent Tibetan shrine room will greet visitors to the Sackler Gallery's upcoming "Encountering the Buddha" exhibition.

From Egyptian Cats to Crime Scenes, Here's a Preview of the Smithsonian's Upcoming Shows

Gallery-goers in D.C. and NYC are in for a mental workout with shows that deliver on everything from the experimental to the traditional

The National Design Awards honor 11 individuals and organizations described by Cooper-Hewitt director Caroline Baumann as having “elevated our understanding of what great American design is and what it can do to improve the world.”

These Design Champs Are Having Their Moment in the Sun

Three Cooper-Hewitt award winners share secrets and stories with design critic Owen Edwards

Esperanza Spalding’s Pop Culture Loves

She may not own a television, but the Grammy-award winning musician definitely has her favorite books and films

Les choses de Paul Poiret (Paul Poiret's Things), 1911

Esperanza Spalding: Jazz Musician, Grammy Award Winner and Now Museum Curator

The title of her latest album "D + Evolution" is also the theme of a new exhibition at the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt

Muse with Violin Screen (detail), 1930. Rose Iron Works, Inc. (American, Cleveland, est. 1904). Paul Fehér (Hungarian, 1898–1990), designer. Wrought iron, brass; silver and gold plating

How Jazz, Flappers, European Émigrés, Booze and Cigarettes Transformed Design

A new Cooper-Hewitt exhibition explores the Jazz Age as a catalyst in popular style

The World of Radio (detail) by Arthur Gordon Smith

The Romance and Promise of 20th-Century Radio Is Captured in This Mural

At the Cooper Hewitt, a rare opportunity to view "The World of Radio" with its masterful vignettes celebrating the Modern age

Cars are a liability and expensive to maintain for most Americans. The Future Cycles team builds human-powered vehicles that combine the efficiency of a bicycle or moped with the weather protection and carrying capacity of a car.

These Locally Grown Design Ideas Were Created by the People for the People

A Cooper Hewitt exhibition spotlights the innovative and sustainable designs generated by those in search of solutions

This shopping bag was designed by the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union and handed out to shoppers in front of department stores around New York in 1964.

Fuel Your Design Obsession With 200,000 Newly Digitized Artifacts

Explore 30 centuries of design at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum without leaving your computer

Sewer in a Suitcase: This handy kit shows people where water goes after it goes down the drain.

These Kits Beautifully Explain How City Sewers and Zoning Laws Work

New York's Center for Urban Pedagogy uses art and design to help people better understand complex laws and systems

In the installation of Smell, The Beauty of Decay: SmellScape Central Park, designed by Sissel Tolaas, visitors touch the wall that has been painted with the special paint, releasing the scent.

Can Smell Be a Work of Art?

Scent artist Sissel Tolaas uses chemistry to explore the malodorous, yet beautiful, scent of decay in Central Park

Robert Kondo, Remy in the Kitchen, "Ratatouille," 2007

The Art and Design Behind Pixar’s Animation

A new exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt in New York City draws on the rich backstory of what it takes to give computer-animated life to pen and ink sketches

The rolling hydraulic bridge at London’s Paddington Basin built in 2004 curls up on itself like a pillbug.

A Look Into the Innovative Mind of One of the World's Most Inventive Architects

A new show at the Cooper Hewitt reveals the process behind designer Thomas Heatherwick's projects

“The [museum] is a beautiful example of the strategic ‘borrowing’ that created the rich cultural environment we have all inherited from the African continent.”

Is Architecture Actually a Form of Weaving?

David Adjaye, architect of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, approaches building design as creating "fabric"

A chocolate pot from Yokohama, Japan, ca. 1904. Porcelain with clear glaze and overglaze enamels

A Brief History of the Chocolate Pot

How humans have consumed chocolate sheds lights on its significance to cultures and eras

"Joe" and "Josephine" inThe Measure of Man posters, authored by Henry Dreyfuss, designed by Alvin R. Tilley, 1969

The Smithsonian Design Museum Tells the Story of User-Centered Design Through 120 Beautiful Products

A thermostat, a wheelchair, a prosthetic arm and razors are all a part of "Beautiful Users," now on display in New York City

Handaxe #5 and Blade #9, BC-AD Contemporary Flint Tool Design series, designed by Dov Ganchrow and Ami Drach, 2011

Nearly Two Million Years of Innovation, As Told Through Tools

Cooper Hewitt, the Smithsonian Design Museum, will exhibit 175 objects that range from Paleolithic tools to space-age satellites

Andrew Carnegie built his mansion on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 91st Street, asking for the “most modest, plainest, and most roomy house in New York.”

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Makes Its Grand Re-Opening in New York City

The old and the new crash into each other beautifully in the former Carnegie mansion

People's Design Award collage

The People’s Design Award Promises a Very Cyborg Future

This year's nominees focus on wearable technology

Vote for the Winner of the 2014 People's Design Award

Marvel at these breakthroughs in innovative design and select your favorite

Page 4 of 8