Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York is the most important museum in the United States solely dedicated to design and decorative arts.

The museum, founded in 1897 as part of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, belongs to the Smithsonian Institution since 1967.
The museum is housed in a Georgian-style building, the Andrew Carnegie Mansion, completed in 1903 after a design by architects Babb. Cook & Willard and located close to the Central Park in Upper Manhattan.

The collection of the Cooper Hewitt museum amounts to over 217,000 pieces of historical and contemporary design, including notable collections of furniture, decorative arts, textiles, architecture, graphics, ceramics, metal-works, clothes, and musical instruments.
In 2014, the museum underwent a major renovation and a full update of the core galleries with the addition of state-of-the-art multimedia and interactive exhibits.

The Cooper Hewitt Museum hosts temporary exhibitions, conferences, workshops and special events, including the renowned National Design Awards.
The museum building also accommodates the famous Smithsonian Design library, a shop, a garden, and a cafe.

Photos: cover © Cooper Hewitt; 1 © James Rudnick 2012; 2 by Loom Studio; 3 and 4 by Martin Kalfatovic