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. Traditionally formed by hand, ceramic vessels possess inherent organic characteristics. Their forms have often been influenced by or imitated the shapes of human bodies since the...

Design is for public consumption. Its process is collaborative and frequently involves many iterations of an idea before the best solution is found. This is why contests in design come about so naturally. Design competitions date all the way back to 448 BCE when the city of Athens decided to construct a war memorial on...

This Object of the Day  celebrates one of many treasured objects given by Clare and Eugene V. Thaw to Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.  It is republished here in memory of Eugene V. Thaw. Click on this link to read more about the Thaws and their gifts to Cooper Hewitt.    Design for a Smoking Room by...

This print by James Abbott McNeill Whistler is part of a series of images the artist produced depicting the East London neighborhoods of Rotherhithe and Wapping in 1859–60. While English painters had traditionally avoided portraying these industrial districts of the city throughout the nineteenth century, Whistler’s Thames series takes for subject the city’s poorest workers...

Before the age of safety matches, matchbooks, and lighters, was the age of delicately intricate or simply functional matchsafes. Known as ‘vesta cases’ in Britain for their association with Vesta, the Roman goddess of fire and the hearth, matchsafes reigned as king when early friction matches were considered highly combustible and unreliable. To avoid the...

In the late 1970s Rino Pirovano and Rino Boschet purchased a workshop outside of Milan from the widow of an artisan who had earned his living producing metal and plastic motorcycle and scooter components. In taking over the space, Pirovano and Boschet inherited an assortment of equipment used by the old artisan for his trade,...

Throughout the majority of his career, comedian George Burns (1896-1996), was rarely seen without his favorite cigar in hand – the El Producto Queens. He reportedly smoked 10-15 cigars each day and lived to be 100. At 98 he was even quoted saying, “If I’d taken my doctor’s advice and quit smoking when he advised...