CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Cooper Hewitt Museum

The museum was founded in 1897 by Eleanor and Sarah Hewitt, the grandchildren of industrialist Peter Cooper, as a section of The Cooper Union for the promotion of science and art. Today it is part of the Smithsonian Institution and is dedicated to design, offering a varied collection of over 210,000 objects covering thirty centuries of historical and contemporary design. The collection focuses on architecture, sculpture, paintings, decorative arts, woodworking, metalworking, ceramics, costumes, musical instruments and furniture.
There are six departments: product design and decorative arts, drawings, prints and graphics, textiles, wallpaper, digital works and archives. Objects in the collection include Michelangelo’s drawings, Frank Lloyd Wright’s furniture designs and more than 400 textile stencil models. There are also drawings and prints by artists such as Winslow Homer and Frederic E. Church. There is also an annual program of lectures, conversations, practical workshops and the National Design Awards are organized each year, a prestigious award for innovation and excellence in American design.
The museum is located in the Andrew Carnegie Mansion, a residence built in Georgian Architecture style between 1899 and 1902 with 64 rooms which is in itself an example of design innovation, having been the first American house to have a steel structure, an Otis elevator and central heating.

References

Francis Morrone. The Architectural Guidebook to New York City . Gibbs Smith, 2002. pp. 322-323
About Cooper Hewitt (Cooper Hewitt Museum)
Our collection (Cooper Hewitt Museum)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (Wikipedia)
Cooper Hewitt (Encyclopædia Britannica)

Useful links

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (Google Arts & Culture)