Liberty and immigration: here are values so intimately tied with the history of the United States and New York in particular, that they seem to permeate one another. The year 1974 was a strenuous one for the US. The recent end of the Vietnam War left open wounds still seething in the minds of millions,...

On October 8, 2014, leading business and design innovators were invited to Cooper Hewitt’s Business of Design Breakfast, an annual invitation-only National Design Awards event for business leaders to discuss how good design is good business. Teresa Yoo, Vice President of Brand Strategy and Experience Design at IBM moderated the conversation, which was hosted by...

Installation view, Yinka Shonibare Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection exhibition, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, 2005. Photo: Andrew Garn, © Smithsonian Institution, reproduced courtesy of the artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, and James Cohan Gallery, New York At a recent salon sponsored by Urban Green, industry pros discussed new strategies and the changing...

The final grand challenge posed by Secretary Wayne Clough for the new strategic plan of the Smithsonian is explained by the sentence: “America is an increasingly diverse society that shares a history, ideals, and an indomitable, innovative spirit. We will use our resources across disciplines to explore what it means to be an American and...

Here’s some impressive trivia: Q – How many Museums are there in the Smithsonian? A – 19, including the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Q – How many objects in the collections? A – 137,000,000. Q – How many visitors last year? A – 30,000,000. Q – How many website visits? A – 188,000,000. Yes, those...