Author: Adèle Bourbonne

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The image is a detail shot of a monochrome white wallpaper composed of torn and layered strips of paper. Please scroll down for a further description of this piece.
Topographies: “Landscape on the Wall”
Topographies dazzles our eyes and walls with a trompe l’oeil effect that successfully tricks our senses—the seemingly three-dimensional surface is deceptively flat. To create the pattern, designers stacked multiple sheets of paper and tore away portions of the surface by hand, forming canyon-like valleys of various widths and depths. The wallcovering’s name refers to the...
Read Time
2 minutes
Posted By
Adèle Bourbonne
Date
April 26, 2018
Image features three figures in 18th century dress situated in a pastoral setting. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
L’Odorat
In celebration of our new exhibition The Senses: Design Beyond Vision, this Object of the Day post explores the multisensory experience of an object in Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection. This bright, hand-colored print dated to about 1750 and signed by François-Thomas Mondon depicts a group of figures in a landscape composed of trees, flowers, and...
Read Time
3 minutes
Posted By
Adèle Bourbonne
Date
April 24, 2018
Image features one-piece table lamp consisting of a bulbous cap and tapering stem, its body made of alternating white and orange-brown vertically striped glass. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
And then There Was Light!
In celebration of our new exhibition The Senses: Design Beyond Vision, this Object of the Day post explores the multisensory experience of an object in Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection. The invention of the incandescent light bulb in the nineteenth century not only advanced technology, but also design, especially into the twentieth century. This bulbous, blown...
Read Time
3 minutes
Posted By
Adèle Bourbonne
Date
April 21, 2018
Image features a cut and folded white paper sphere that sits upright upon the center fold of a piece of paper. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Kirigami Intricacies: More than Folding Paper
In celebration of The Senses: Design Beyond Vision, this Object of the Day post takes a multisensory approach to an object in Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection. This cut and folded paper sphere created by Masahiro Chatani in 1980 is a complex example of “origamic architecture,” a type of kirigami (切り紙)—from the words kiru (to cut)...
Read Time
2 minutes
Posted By
Adèle Bourbonne
Date
April 20, 2018
Image features the letter-form Y and the Yale bulldog mascot in rows of descending sizes with varying rotations. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
How sharp is your vision?
In celebration of our new exhibition, The Senses: Design Beyond Vision, this Object of the Day post explores the multi-sensory experience of an object in Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection. In this poster, graphic designer Paul Rand plays with the iconography of eye charts to create a clever advertisement for Yale University. He incorporates the school’s mascot, an...
Read Time
3 minutes
Posted By
Adèle Bourbonne
Date
April 18, 2018
Image features an off-white rectangular speaker, the front with two rows of vertical slits; left and right sides faced with square, blond wood panels. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
“Less, but better”
In celebration of our new exhibition The Senses: Design Beyond Vision, this Object of the Day post explores the multisensory experience of an object in Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection. Dieter Rams, Chief Design Officer for German consumer products manufacturer Braun AG from 1961-95, designed the neutral and unassuming L1 speaker in 1957. Influenced by Braun’s...
Read Time
4 minutes
Posted By
Adèle Bourbonne
Date
April 16, 2018