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Tag: design

Cooper Hewitt Pro-Seminar Series IV: Luigi Colani ponders the Big Bang

Elizabeth Broman
April 16, 2019
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Cooper Hewitt Pro-Seminar Series IV: Luigi Colani ponders the Big BangImage features collection of 120 plates in YLEM by Luigi Colani.

This post was contributed by Evelyn Meynard, graduate student in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies program offered jointly by the Parsons School of Design and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and Elizabeth Broman, Reference Librarian, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Library. 

All incoming students in The New School Parsons History of Design and Curatorial Studies (MA) Masters’ Degree Program at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum take an object and research based class called Pro-Seminar. This course trains students in conducting formal analyses, writing catalog entries, and making visual presentations that require students to conduct and integrate primary and secondary source research. The Cooper Hewitt Library regularly collaborates with faculty and students, providing research resources, curriculum consultation and Special Collections presentations for classes.  Selecting  one work from the Cooper-Hewitt collection to study during the semester, that ”work” can be a book from the Cooper Hewitt Design Library presented by staff during curatorial orientations.

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Design competitions as old as design

Elizabeth Broman
May 16, 2018
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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 the Acropolis. This decision followed the Greco-Persian war and the watershed Battle of Marathon in Athens. Not all design competitions follow landmark events though.

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Fashion in the Natural World: Fusing Science with Art

Grace Costantino
March 16, 2016
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This post first appeared on the Biodiversity Heritage Library blog in February 2016.

Emile-Allain Séguy was a popular French designer throughout the Art Deco and Art Nouveau movements of the 1920s. Often confused with the French entomologist Eugene Séguy who was active during the same time period, E.A. Séguy designed primarily patterns and textiles and was heavily influenced by the natural world. He was particularly fond of the intricate patterns and beauty of insects (Eugene would have approved), which he saw as “mechanic wonders” that provided abundant inspiration for interior design (Schiff, 157).

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Explore “Color in a New Light” on Periscope & Twitter

Erin Rushing
January 19, 2016
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At the end of the month, the Smithsonian Libraries will open Color in a New Light, a new exhibition highlighting the role of color in our lives, from science to fashion and everything in between.  Even if you’re not able to visit the show in person in the National Museum of Natural History ,  we invite you to join us as we explore color through several interactive social media events.

 

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For the Voice 

Liz O'Brien
October 14, 2015
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VanDykLissitzky1This post was written by Stephen Van Dyk, Librarian, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library.

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library recently obtained this renowned example of early 20th century book and graphic design entitled Dlja golosa (For the Voice), published in Berlin in 1923.  The sixty-one page softcover work, a collaboration of Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) and designer El Lissitzky (1890-1941), rhythmically interlaces innovative constructivist style layouts and patterns with thirteen futurist poems.

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Designing Women: The Hewitt Sisters and The Remaking of a Modern Museum (Part 2)

Richard Naples
October 9, 2015
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This is a two-part series on the Hewitt sisters. Read part one.

By 1897, Sarah and Eleanor had collected enough to formally open their museum on the fourth floor of the Cooper Union. In the tradition of their grandfather, the Hewitt sisters wanted to actualize a museum and library that were not just a showcase, but also tools—places that students and designers could come to for reference and inspiration, then go out and create their own innovative objects. In the birth of the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, the sisters embodied the increasingly democratic attitudes that grew to dominate the 20th century. Their museum was to be open to everyone, with “no tedious restrictions and formalities,” which were often imposed by the exclusive art galleries of the era. Indeed, their museum provided a means for many women to gain economic independence through art and design.

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Designing Women: The Hewitt Sisters and The Remaking of a Modern Museum (Part 1)

Richard Naples
October 7, 2015
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This is a two-part series on the Hewitt sisters.

Deep in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library’s collection of rare books, one might be surprised to come across children’s illustrated books by Walter Crane and Beatrix Potter. Even more fascinating might be the origin of these tomes, for in this collection are the very books read by the founding sisters of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum: Sarah (Sallie) and Eleanor (Nellie) Hewitt. These sisters—born of the Gilded Age, granddaughters of industrialist Peter Cooper—would create the first and only museum dedicated to decorative arts in the United States, originally named the Museum for the Arts of Decoration. They were the first women to establish a museum in America.

Continue ReadingDesigning Women: The Hewitt Sisters and The Remaking of a Modern Museum (Part 1)