Imaginative author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in his 1884 essay, A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured, “If you love art, folly, or the bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock’s…”[1] The toy theatre was a beloved pastime in 19th-century England that appealed to the creativity and craftsmanship of children and adults. Benjamin Pollock inherited his...

DesignBoost NYC was a two-day design conference held at Cooper-Hewitt in June 2011. Thirteen speakers specializing in everything from biomechanics to filmmaking addressed the conference’s theme, “Design Beyond Design” in this series of short talks.

Delicate cloud lighting forms float over, and mirror, island seat forms below, like the puffy white clouds that sit over the many islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean. Aotearoa, the Maori name for New Zealand, means the “land of long white cloud.” It is not primarily to do with recyclable materials, efficient material use. To...

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...