Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Design with the Other 90%: CITIES

This exhibition examines the complex issues arising from the unprecedented rate of urban growth projected to take place over the next 20 years in informal settlements.

October 15, 2011 – January 9, 2012

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Stamps of Approval

See eight objects featured in the U.S. Postal Service's Pioneers of American Industrial Design series of Forever stamps.

August 12, 2011 – September 25, 2011

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels

Explore the historical significance of Van Cleef & Arpels's contributions to jewelry design in the 20th century with more than 350 works, including jewels, timepieces, fashion accessories, and objects d'art.

February 18, 2011 – July 4, 2011

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay

Explore fashion and textile designs from Sonia Delaunay's Atelier Simultané in Paris in the 1920s through 1940s.

March 18, 2011 – June 19, 2011

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Quicktake: Tangible Earth

Tangible Earth, the world's first interactive digital globe, shows dynamic changes in the world using interactive technology.

February 18, 2011 – March 18, 2011

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

National Design Triennial: Why Design Now?

Enjoy the most innovative designs at the center of contemporary culture in this series, that addresses and explores human and environmental problems across many design fields.

May 14, 2010 – January 9, 2011

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Ted Muehling Selects: Lobmeyr Glass from the Permanent Collection

Appreciate 163 rare examples of glass dating from 1835 to the 21st century from J. and L. Lobmeyr of Vienna, Austria, that tell the history of glassmaking in central Europe.

April 23, 2010 – January 2, 2011

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Doodle 4 Google: If I Could Do Anything, I Would...

Delight in 40 designs selected among tens of thousands of entries submitted by students K-12 from all 50 states in Google's annual "Doodle 4 Google" design competition.

May 27, 2010 – August 15, 2010

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Quicktake: Tato Nano

Enjoy a bright, sunshine yellow Nano, "the people's car" from India, along with diagrams and a short film describing its concept, development and production.

February 18, 2010 – April 25, 2010

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Design USA: Contemporary Innovation

Celebrate the accomplishments of the winners honored during the first 10 years of the prestigious National Design Awards.

October 16, 2009 – April 4, 2010

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Quicktake: Rodarte

Find out about Rodarte, founded in 2005 by sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, widely acclaimed for its daring and conceptural fashion collections.

February 11, 2010 – March 14, 2010

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Design for a Living World

Follow ten leading designers commissioned to develop new uses for sustainably grown and harvested materials in order to tell a unique story about the life cycle of materials and the power of conservation and design.

May 14, 2009 – January 4, 2010

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Meier 75

Celebrate the architect Richard Meier's 75th birthday, with architectural drawings and models of three of his major projects, and three collage works.

October 1, 2009 – October 12, 2009

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Fashioning Felt

Explore the varied new uses of felt -- an ancient material, believed to be one of the earliest techniques for making textiles.

March 6, 2009 – September 7, 2009

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Shahzia Sikander Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection

Explore the relationship between the present and the past and the richness of multicultural identities with internationally acclaimed artist Shahzia Sikander, who serves as the ninth guest curator of the Selects exhibition.

March 6, 2009 – September 7, 2009

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Solos: Tulou/Affordable Housing for China

In the fifth installment of the Solos series, visit Tulou, a prototype for affordable housing being built in the city of Guangzhou by the Chinese architectural practice Urbanus.

October 3, 2008 – April 5, 2009

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Wall Stories: Children's Wallpaper and Books

Explore the relationship between wallpapers, strongly influenced by literature and popular culture, and books created for children.

October 3, 2008 – April 5, 2009

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Curators Select: Recent Acquisitions, 2003-2008

Visit an exhibition featuring recent acquisitions to all four of the museum's collecting departments: Product Design and Decorative Arts; Drawings, Prints and Graphic Design; Textiles; and Wallcoverings.

September 12, 2008 – March 1, 2009

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

House Proud: Nineteenth-Century Watercolor Interiors from the Thaw Collection

View and appreciate the Thaw's collection of 19th-century watercolor drawings that meticulously detail the era's interior furnishings and document the social, cultural, and aesthetic development of European domestic life.

August 12, 2008 – January 25, 2009

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Multiple Choice: From Sample to Product

Examine sample books and other sampling formats as tools for marketing or recording designs and techniques in a wide variety of media.

November 9, 2007 – September 1, 2008

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Campana Brothers Select: Works from the Permanent Collection

See an installation from the museum's collection selected by the Brazilian brothers Fernando and Huberto Campana, the fifth guest curators in this exhibition series.

February 15, 2008 – August 24, 2008

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Rococo: The Continuing Curve, 1730-2008

Explore the Rococo style and its continuing revivals up to the present day.

March 7, 2008 – July 6, 2008

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Provoking Magic: Lighting of Ingo Maurer

Visit a retrospective of the celebrated lighting designer Ingo Maurer that offers a comprehensive overview of his nearly four decades of work.

September 14, 2007 – January 27, 2008

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Piranesi as Designer

Examine for the first time the complete works of Piranesi (1720-1778) as a designer of architecture, elaborate interiors, and exquisite furnishings and his far-reaching influence on noted architects and designers of yesterday and today.

September 14, 2007 – January 20, 2008

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

IDEO Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection

Explore the theme of "design thinking" -- an approach used to solve design problems over the past five centuries based on three categories: influence, intuition, and empathy.

June 22, 2007 – January 13, 2008

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum