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Cooper Hewitt reopens

After a three-year renovation, the Cooper Hewitt Museum reopens today with 10 inaugural exhibitions, transforming the historic Carnegie Mansion into a 21st-century museum.

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the only museum in the United States devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design, will open the renovated and restored Carnegie Mansion, today.
Cooper Hewitt
Top: on the third floor, debuting in the versatile new 6,000-square-foot Barbara and Morton Mandel Design Gallery, “Tools: Extending Our Reach” (on view Dec. 12 through May 25, 2015) explores how tools extend the human body, senses, capacity and action – with results that change the world, and also change ourselves. Above: “Beautiful Users” (on view Dec. 12 through April 26, 2015) premieres in the new Design Process Galleries on the first floor and demonstrates the shift toward user-centric design based on observations of human anatomy and behavior
When the transformed museum opens on New York’s Museum Mile, it will offer 60 percent more exhibition space to showcase one of the most diverse and comprehensive collections of design works in existence.
Cooper Hewitt
The new Immersion Room, also on the second floor, features more than 200 examples of Cooper Hewitt’s extraordinary collection of wallcoverings, one of the largest in North America, and allows visitors to select their favorite s or draw their own designs, and then project full-scale versions onto the gallery walls
Ten inaugural exhibitions and installations, many of which draw from the museum’s permanent collection of more than 210,000 objects that span 30 centuries, will feature more than 700 objects throughout four floors of the mansion. For the first time in the museum’s history, the entire second floor will be dedicated to showcasing the permanent collection through a variety of exhibitions.
Cooper Hewitt
On the first floor, the guest-curated “Maira Kalman Selects” (on view Dec. 12 through June 14, 2015) is an assemblage of objects from Cooper Hewitt, other Smithsonian collections and the artist’s own home that suggests a life story, from birth through death
The transformation of the historic Carnegie Mansion (the former residence of Andrew Carnegie) into a 21st-century museum involved an esteemed team of 13 design firms. The spirit and character of the landmark building were preserved, with key elements restored to their original grandeur. Much-needed system upgrades were made, allowing for more flexibility to reduce exhibition installation time, better accommodate the movement of objects and, above all, to enhance public access on every level.
Cooper Hewitt
A hands-on Process Lab allows visitors to immerse themselves in design practice through physical and digital activities to emphasize how design is a way of thinking, planning and problem solving, and provides a foundation for the rest of the design concepts on view in the museum
The museum will also open with the new SHOP Cooper Hewitt and a café. Unique items on sale in the SHOP will include a glow-in-the-dark edition of Making Design, the Irma Boom-designed limited edition handbook of the museum’s collection; a suite of designs by Boym Partners that features a Carnegie mansion made of emoticons; and a special series of plates, mugs and trays in collaboration with notNeutral, which are inspired by the museum’s extensive textile collection.
Cooper Hewitt
The second floor features also an inaugural installation of 18th and 19th century staircase models in the Models & Prototypes gallery (on view Dec. 12 through 2015), which provides insights into the important role of architectural models and design prototypes

until 25 May 2015
Tools: Extending Our Reach (3rd floor)
through 2015
Making Design + Hewitt Sisters Collect + Passion for the Exotic: Lockwood de Forest, Frederic Church (2nd floor)
until 26 April 2015
Beautiful Users (1st floor)
until 14 June
Maira Kalman Selects (1st floor)
Designing the New Cooper Hewitt (ground floor)
Cooper Hewitt Museum
2E 91st Street, New York City


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