Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Public program alert! ?? On Saturday, November 23, “Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial” artist Amie Siegel speaks with Professor Jasmine Nichole Cobb, a leading scholar of African American cultural production and visual representation whose published writings trace the emergence of Black freedom as both an idea and as an image in popular culture. Together, Siegel and Cobb will consider the visual and social signification of panoramic wallpapers. The program will explore each of their approaches to questioning depictions of people, landscapes and cultures in material culture across time. Reserve your tickets: https://s.si.edu/3CCrXdk

?? Meet “Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial” participant La Vaughn Belle, a multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on the often-forgotten colonial narratives embedded in the architecture and material culture of contemporary society. For the entryway to the museum, Belle designed “The House That Freedoms Built,” three structures inspired by the shapes of 18th-century houses built by formerly enslaved people who negotiated their freedom and were allowed to settle in Christiansted, Saint Croix. ?? Click the link to learn more about Belle’s work, which is on view in “Making Home” at Cooper Hewitt through August 2025: https://s.si.edu/4923ABN

Spending this #TextileTuesday with one of the greats. ? Alexander Girard was trained as an architect and began practicing architecture and interior design in the 1920s. His formal training and his love of folk art designs are evident throughout Girard’s body of work. Many of his designs are geometric and precise, infused with bursts of color—an unusual move for a time when muddy, dulled-down palettes were the norm. The sensational colors and patterns present in Girard’s patterns still inspire designers and design lovers today. ? __ 1. Sample, Jacob’s Coat, 1955; Designed by Alexander Hayden Girard; Produced by Herman Miller Furniture Company; Wool (83%) and cotton (17%) 2. Sample, Mikado, 1954; Designed by Alexander Hayden Girard; Manufactured by American Art Textile Printing Company, Inc.; Cotton (81%) and polyester (19%) 3. Sample, Crosses, 1957; Designed by Alexander Hayden Girard; Produced by Herman Miller Furniture Company; 100% unbleached linen 4. Textile, Gears, ca. 1949; Designed by Alexander Hayden Girard; Produced by Herman Miller Furniture Company; Linen 5. Sample, Giant Stripes, 1959; Designed by Alexander Hayden Girard; Designed by Herman Miller Furniture Company; Wool (54%) and cotton (46%)

Now open ?? “Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial” explores design’s role in shaping the physical and emotional realities of home across the United States, U.S. territories, and Tribal Nations. Installed throughout Cooper Hewitt’s Andrew and Louise Carnegie Mansion, the exhibition’s 25 debut commissions reflect perspectives influenced by a range of geographical, cultural, and social conditions. Together, these interventions draw attention to a variety of experiences under U.S. sovereignty and influence, while resisting a singular notion of America or what it means to be American. Experience "Making Home" in real life, through August 10, 2025—tap the link to plan your visit: https://s.si.edu/3xeOSTM __ 1. Davóne Tines, Hugh Hayden, and Zack Winokur: "Living Room, Orlean, Virginia" 2. Nicole Crowder and Hadiya Williams: "The Offering" 3. Ronald Rael: "Casa Desenterrada/Exhuming Home" 4. Liam Lee and Tommy Mishima: "Game Room" 5. (On right) Robert Earl Paige: "Fahara: Chicago in View" 6. Curry J. Hackett, Wayside Studio: "So That You All Won't Forget: Speculations on a Black Home in Rural Virgina" 7. Lenape Center and Joe Baker: "Welcome to Territory" 8. Terrol Dew Johnson and Aranda\Lasch: "We:sic 'em ki: (Everybody's Home)" All photos by Elliot Goldstein ? The Smithsonian Institution.

Adjustable and lockable, this reclining chair, designed by the Italian firm Società Anonima Antonio Volpe in 1905, exemplifies the fusion of form and function. The chair’s use of wooden rods and applied notched supports allows for the back and the footrest to be adjusted. Read more about this innovative design on the Cooper Hewitt blog: https://s.si.edu/4dTGeiu __ Reclining Rocking Chair (Italy), ca. 1905; Designed and manufactured by Societa Anonima Antonio Volpe; bent beechwood, woven caning. This object is part of Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection and is not currently on display.

In celebration of the opening of "Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial" on Saturday, November 2, join Cooper Hewitt for session two of the inaugural Making Home Saturday Series program, featuring Chief of the Delaware Tribe of Indians Brad KillsCrow, Maria Nicanor, Director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and Kevin Young, Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The Making Home Saturday Series is a quarterly program that pairs special guests with participants from the exhibition. The program’s two-part sessions include conversations on exhibition-related themes, including systems, belonging, memory, care, and building, as well as the contemporary concepts of home related to race, class, migration, climate, and technology. Click the link below to get your tickets!

In celebration of the opening of "Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial" on Saturday, November 2, join Cooper Hewitt for session one of the inaugural Making Home Saturday Series program, featuring curators Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, Christina L. de León, and Michelle Joan Wilkinson The Making Home Saturday Series is a quarterly program that pairs special guests with participants from the exhibition. The program’s two-part sessions include conversations on exhibition-related themes, including systems, belonging, memory, care, and building, as well as the contemporary concepts of home related to race, class, migration, climate, and technology. Click the link below to get your tickets!

For more than 20 years, Michael Eden has been a professional potter, often working in a traditional slipware technique. In 2006, he enrolled in a postgraduate program at the Royal College of Art in London and his career set off in a new direction. Now a self-described ‘maker,’ Eden explores how digital technology can be combined with traditional ceramic techniques to produce a new kind of work. Eden’s “Tall Green Bloom Urn” (pictured here) is a large, handled form that also references ancient classical ceramics, but is made in a truly twenty-first-century way. Eden designs the object using computer software, then sends the data to be “printed” in nylon. According to Eden, the form is “dyed to start with, as it would be impossible to access the interior surfaces with [a brush or] air gun without causing unsightly build-up of color” in the form’s many crevices and gaps. Eden suggests that the urn’s radiating rods, the layering of which forms the structure, are reminiscent of bursting thistles. Watch a video about Eden's creative process here: https://s.si.edu/3NoEaUW __ Tall Green Bloom Urn, 2012; Designed by Michael Eden (English, b. 1955); Nylon; England

Jewel tones for #TextileTuesday. ?? __ 1. Textile, 1750–1800; cotton; France 2. Textile, 1700–50; silk 3. Textile, ca. 1860s; silk; France 4. Textile, 18th century; silk; France 5. Textile, 1880–1900; silk; France 6. Textile, 18th century; silk; France All objects are part of Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection and are not currently on display.

A camera in a box. ?? Walter Dorwin Teague was a well-established industrial designer by 1928, when the Eastman Kodak Company engaged him to modernize their line of cameras. Having no prior experience in camera design, Teague undertook the assignment after Kodak agreed that he could spend one week each month at their facilities in Rochester, New York to work closely with Kodak’s engineers and learn all he could about cameras and their manufacture. Teague started by redesigning carrying cases for existing lines of cameras, and within two years he went on to design a range of modern-styled cameras for the growing amateur market, including the Beau Brownie box-type camera and the 1A Gift Kodak (pictured here). The 1A Gift Kodak used the company’s number 116 roll film that produced 2 1/4 x 4 1/2 inch prints. ??? Kodak produced its gift cameras in limited runs of 10,000, and the 1A Gift Kodak was a special version created expressly for the holiday gift-giving season—and, at a cost of $15, the 1A Gift Kodak was affordable to consumers of the time and would have indicated the sophistication and modernity of both the giver and recipient. ?? Tap the link to learn more about this design: https://s.si.edu/3N1txY3 __ Camera, 1A Gift Kodak Camera and Box, 1930; Designed by Walter Dorwin Teague; Manufactured by Eastman Kodak Company; USA. This object is part of Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection and is not currently on display.